Teaching Bravery
by Monkey Typewriter
Summary: Harry Dresden is recruited by a rather enigmatic, powerful Wizard to educate his students in self-defense from the supernatural. However, tensions and confusion may arise due to separately evolved, and equally powerful Wizarding cultures, and a certain tournament taking place... M for 'planned' later violence and other things. Dresden-focused, but Potter-peeps will show up a lot.
1. Chapter 1

**Teaching Bravery**

* * *

My Name is Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden.

Conjure by it at your own risk.

I'm a wizard. One of the strongest on the planet, when it comes to sheer metaphysical muscle. I've been called many things. Crazy, violent, loyal, quick-to-anger, mysterious… tall. And maybe I am those things, to one level or another.

And I know magic. Hell's bells, it sort of comes with the territory.

But even me, the crazy American wizard, who doesn't have any idea when to quit, the guy that's found himself the ant staring down a metaphorical T-Rex far too often, knows there are some things you don't do lightly.

One of those things is making a deal with a Queen of Faerie. Asking Titania of the Summer Court to enchant a cup so powerfully and so thoroughly that it creates a binding contract with anyone willingly placing their Name into the goblet that they find themselves bound to compete in a magical tournament for honor and glory, at risk of life and limb, is an insane endeavor. The price for that sort of enchantment was pretty steep, being that if you failed to participate, or even just weren't entertaining enough in the tournament, Titania could claim your access to magic forfeit, and leave you a regular old Average Joe, who knows too much, and has too many enemies.

It only gets worse when your Name, freely given to a creation of the Summer Court, is also gifted to the Summer Queen herself, putting you on her personal rolodex of people who can be completely and without hesitation submitted to her will.

The second thing you didn't do was a matter of respect, and some fear.

You don't treat Goblins like second class citizens without expecting a blade in your back, or a pair of hands around your neck. Not without having gone mad, or eating too many paint chips as a child. Even the descendants of those near perfect predators, their once fully fae blood watered down and diluted over generations, (perhaps as a result of living so long away from the Erlking, their patron, and his realm of the Nevernever, or perhaps because of interbreeding with humans or something else,) are not to be taken lightly.

And the third thing is just common sense.

You don't expect just anyone to defeat who may as well be the second coming of Kemmler himself, with just enough of old Adolf sprinkled on top to keep it interesting.

Certainly not a fourteen year old kid with more power than sense.

Now, I'd never had much gift for auguries and oracles, nor had I ever had a vision of things to come. So I didn't see any of that coming.

But when I found a large, sleepy-eyed Grey Owl sitting on my desk, holding a letter, cleanly punctured in three small holes by its talons, I did have just the smallest shiver of foreboding.

* * *

"It's mental, Murph," I snarled towards the hospital window, running a hand through my hair. My left hand.

Hey, old habits die hard. Mab had taught me well, in her insane Physical Therapy/School or Hard Knocks/Boot Camp of the Damned. The Queen of Air and Darkness had showed me it's never a bad idea to keep your right hand, the one that expels energy, at the ready. And if you have that hand firmly wrapped around your recently replaced staff, carved with enough complex runes to help you with whatever magic you ended up doing? Well, that was all the better.

"I mean, I'm having enough trouble keeping Chicago safe, and this guy wants me to leave all of that behind for some money?" Granted, a large sum of money, in gold that would be untraceable, should I melt it down and sell it in bars. Hell, it'd be untraceable anyway, coming from a completely separate society.

"Well, what exactly is the job?" Murphy asked reasonably, as small, cute, and deadly as I am tall, hawkish, and… deadly.

Well, that's a lie. Murphy's cuter than I am hawkish, especially with my new charmingly roguish scars, which thankfully didn't pluck out my eye in the process of being carved into my brow.

And she's far, far more deadly.

When I gave her a sour look for completely ignoring my incredibly valid point, she went on. "All that you've said is that it's somewhere in the UK, and that they need a wizard. What will you be doing?"

I grumbled something on the edge of coherence.

Giving me a firm, playful look from her hospital bed, (which did all _kinds_ of interesting things for me,) I relented to Murphy's feminine wiles.

Darn blondes and their darn cuteness.

"They want me to teach a bunch of brats how to defend themselves." I groan, bringing the hand that had been tirelessly trying to give me a bald spot down from atop my head, and across my face, before settling my thumb and forefinger into a gentle rub at my tired eyes. The scars that still lingered from a close brush with a flamethrower offered an interesting texture on my tightly-closed lids. "I wouldn't know the first thing about teaching a class-"

"You taught Molly just fine," she cut me off pointedly.

Darn insufferable blondes and their insufferableness.

"And look where she found herself. I failed her, Karrin, and now she's less human than when we started. I wanted to teach her how to use her Talents, Murph, not drag her halfway to Crazy Town and then toss her at Mab." I sigh. "Those kids would be better off if I didn't go near them."

Before I managed to get around to feeling too sorry for myself, getting lost in the many ways I'd failed my appr… ex-apprentice, and current magical employer, (again,) Murph cut through the regret with a firm "Bullshit."

My eyes snapped up from the place they'd found on the floor, and right to hers.

For a moment. Then they slid to her cute button nose.

Eye contact is an intimate thing. It's not always loving, like when two drunken idiots get into fights, staring the other idiot in the eye the whole while. Not like looking into the eyes of the person killing you, or of the person you're killing. But whenever it happens, it means you're connecting with someone, be it for good or ill.

For wizards, or any practitioner of above average strength, there's the added intimacy of the Sight to whenever we look someone in the windows to the soul. We get a good, hard, indelible and unchanging look at who they are at their core, and sometimes what they may be, and they at us.

I wasn't afraid of Seeing Murphy. I'd Seen her already, to an extent. Sure, the Sight, even fully opened, isn't as thorough as a Soulgaze, when it comes to understanding people on a deeper level. But even so, it's as perfect as a Soulgaze in that facts can't be obscured from it. The Sight always cut to the heart of any matter, pierced through any veil, and showed the true nature of anything Seen. It showed the flow of energies, magical and otherwise. It showed a better understanding of everything, while Soulgazes only worked for other people. Or, well, anything with a soul.

It was like a magnifying glass versus a microscope. You'd get a good look either way, but the magnifying glass let you see a few things at once in detail, while the microscope gave you a perfect picture of a single thing at its most base level.

I'd already Seen Murphy. She was, in her truest, purest form, an avenging angel of justice and order. After working with me for a few years, her soul had been stained with the illegal and arguably immoral things she's had to do to protect those she was sworn to. But she fought on, as beautiful and strong as ever, despite her flaws and the things she had endured. The thing's I'd dragged her into enduring on my behalf.

I wasn't worried what I'd See in Murphy. I already had a pretty good idea, and on top of that, I knew her pretty damned well.

That didn't mean I wanted her to See me, though.

Murph didn't have the Sight. If she Saw me, it would be the only perfect, untouchable memory in her whole head. And despite how close we were, the years having each others' backs, the camaraderie, and what else seemed to be growing between us nowadays…

That terrified me. What if she saw something she didn't like? The Winter Mantle, the scars my death had doubtlessly left on my soul? Either of the two times I'd (temporarily) experienced it?

Or worse, what if she saw something she didn't like that was purely me? I'd known for a long time, I had a certain… Predisposition towards darker magics. Well, that's not completely true. I'm especially good at labor-intensive spells, because of my metaphysical endurance, and my real talent lay with thaumaturgy; drawing connections between two things, and forcing what happened on the small scale to occur on the big scale as well. The most well-known examples of this, by the vanilla community, at least, were voodoo dolls. Known for their use in causing pain, harm, misfortune, and sometimes death to those they were wielded against. Whether I liked it or not, thaumaturgy was one of the easier types of magic to do damage with, just under evocation and mind-magics on said list.

(That didn't make it inherently dark, though. It's more complex than that. Take a wrench, for example. It's a tool. Its purpose is for creation, repair, maintenance. That doesn't mean it won't bash a head in pretty good, if you decide to give it a whirl.)

On top of that, if I'm going to be honest, power in general had always been a bit if an aphrodisiac for my subconscious, and darker magics were all about instant returns on investment. Whatever it was, thaumaturgy, evocation, mind-magics, or something more esoteric, like binding a creature to your will by Name, like a Demon, or worse, a fellow person, it would present an instant plus after use. 'Hey, your enemy's dead.' 'Hey, this person is now so afraid of you they will literally do nothing but quiver in their boots whenever they see you.' 'Hey, you now have access to a sentient magical wrecking ball, or total dominion over this person.'

My subconscious can also be more than a little bit of a jerk, but if I told him that he'd give me some 'that makes you one too, idiot' crap again.

"Dresden," she said sharply, pulling me out of my self recriminating. "Did you hear a single word I just said?"

"Er…" My left hand resumed scratching and rubbing at my hair. "Something about how great I am?"

Murphy snorted. "More like how you're not completely useless." Her eyes softened momentarily, as did her voice. "Don't you think that in the world we're living in right now, those kids could use someone who's seen what you have? To teach them before they need to know? To give them a chance at fighting?"

"But Murph, you know Chicago needs me. The Fomor are getting worse, and-"

"And nothing," A bitter smile. "We managed for months without you. I think we can handle a school year, with a newly minted, lightsaber-wielding knight of God running around."

"I-" I had nothing to say.

She was right, and I hated it.

Months, unconscious on Demonreach, (my grouchy, visitor-hating sanctum,) followed by just a few days walking around as my own ghost, followed by Mab's attempts to kill- I mean 'prepare' me, for an Outsider threat, and to kill her daughter, Maeve, followed by yet more months on Demonreach, with nothing but a few rare visits from Murphy and Thomas.

And then, the whole Hades' vault fiasco.

In the past two years, a lot had happened. I'd become a father twice over, sold my soul to the least of any evils around willing to take it, given my dog, Mouse away, (granted, for a very good reason, and to a very good home,) chatted up angels, Fallen and otherwise, had a few scuffles with the former sort, had a talk with a Greek God about how similar we were, watched my apprentice become a literal force of nature, and fought extra-universal monsters intent on destroying all of creation.

Oh yeah. And I'd finally made out with Murph.

And on top of all of that, ranging from the life-alteringly blissful moments of fatherhood I'd managed to get the smallest taste of, to the painfully, impossibly, mind-numbingly complex, difficult, and dangerous sequences of events in which I'd more or less managed to save everything made, ever, from Outsiders, I hadn't gotten much living done. Sure I'd saved it, and the world, but I didn't get to really live in Chicago, in my city, very much at all.

I'd missed Chicago. I'd missed my home.

And now, I was being called off by some strange new wizard I'd never heard of in Britain, to babysit some kids for the better part of another year.

I didn't want to go. It was selfish, certainly, but I'd never claimed to be a saint.

But I had to. I couldn't just trust that they'd find someone else to do the job, and do it right. And while my track record with teaching wasn't the best, I did trust myself to show a bunch of kids what goes bump in the night, and how to keep it from bumping you off.

"You're right, Murph." I sighed.

"As usual," she smirked triumphantly, before hefting a sock full of diamonds in her hand, her eyes glittering a blue far prettier than any precious stone. "Now, let's have a good long talk about how _this_ got in here."

I'd long been a subscriber to the Wile E. Coyote school of _Suuuuuuuper Genius!_

But there were times that the other side of the street was of use to me, too.

"Meep meep!"

"Grow up, Harry!" She hollered after me as I fled from the bed-ridden, five-nothing girl, a fond smile on my, and if I had to bet, her, face.

* * *

Standing at the near end of the Whatsup Dock, so his toes were mere inches from the dirt of Demonreach, was a tall, thin, long-bearded and bespectacled old man.

He also seemingly unconsciously put out an aura of power that clearly said _attack me, and I won't be responsible for your medical bills._

His eyes twinkled like stars, and aside from the aforementioned feeling of _I'll kick your metaphysical ass so hard it'll pop out your ears_ playing across my senses, he seemed like a grandfather, smiling and unbowed after his many years on the planet.

Now, he didn't feel stronger than me. As I'd said, few out there were, when it came to strictly human practitioners. But that didn't mean he wasn't close.

And that didn't mean his talent felt, even from this distance, and with the interference of all of Demonreach's power, so refined that I wouldn't doubt he could singe the hair off a fly from a hundred paces without so much as warming the rest of it.

"Are you Albus?" I asked roughly, feet firmly planted a foot back from where the dock began. I'd put out a few feelers on the guy, when I'd decided I wouldn't sleep well after refusing if I didn't at least take a closer look at things. Not many people from my side of the pond knew him, and were willing to talk about him to just about anyone. A few had talked though, my grandfather and mentor, Ebenezar McCoy being a particularly helpful resource. What I'd found didn't exactly inspire confidence in my own abilities in a fight against him. So, I decided that I'd stay on Demonreach until I got a measure of the man.

Basically, what I'd learned through others came down to three things.

One, he was hands down the strongest wizard in 'Wizarding Britain,' though, maybe, ( _maybe_ ) not the White Council, alive today.

Two, he was a master of Mind Magics, which put him high on the White Council's watch list, regardless of his place at the head of the 'Light' in Britain. Sure, what he specialized in wasn't the most destructive thing, seeing as his mind magics consisted entirely of ordering and defending his own mind, as well as simply peeking at another's thoughts. He walked the very razor's edge of the Third Law, but referring back to fact number one about this guy, and the bonus of his having countless wizards and witches who followed him fanatically, the White Council wasn't too keen on starting trouble with the man.

And Three, he was exactly what he felt like to my wizard's senses. A magical ass-kicking machine.

Maybe that's a disappointing third fact, but it's perfectly accurate. Just because he's the strongest and most well-renowned wizard in his 'Wizarding World' didn't mean too much to me.

A small quirk to his lips under his beard, and a brief nod of his silver-topped head. "Yes, that would be me. May I ask why you asked to meet here, rather than, say, the Accorded Neutral Ground? I believe the threat of your Queen's retribution would be a larger deterrent to any foul-play on my part than what you and this… I must admit I am unfamiliar with the terminology for some of the beings you deal with… Genius spirit? Can do to me."

"Genius Loci," I supplied, carefully eyeing the man no more warily than before. This man was dangerous, and he'd done his homework. He knew my town well enough to be aware of MacAnnally's, and he knew me well enough to be aware of my being the new Winter Knight.

And, from what I knew of his sort of wizard, they tended not to bother with any beings of the Nevernever, writing off the Fae, the... 'trueblooded,' I suppose, Goblins, and all sorts of other nasties we deal with from my side of the supernatural fence.

But he not only knew of Mab, (kind of a big name, in Faerie, granted, but still,) he also knew of the Unseelie Accords, Mab's brainchild.

Ugh. I'm going to have to not use that particular expression, considering. Picturing a Spirit of Intellect coming from Mab's skull… Not exactly a happy thought, considering the things it would know.

But the point was, he was surprisingly well informed for a wizard outside of the Council.

And knowledge was power.

What was worse than all of that, was that he knew exactly _how_ dangerous he was, while I only had a really good guess. He had the upper hand in this situation, in experience, skill, information… everything but sheer power, which I only had as big a lead as I did in right now because of Demonreach's help.

But I didn't want someone that strong to think he scared me. Maybe he wasn't putting out the 'predator' vibes so many temporary allies and permanent enemies of mine had, (the two not being mutually exclusive,) but it still wasn't a good idea, just in case his 'kindly grandfather' thing was an act. Showing fear was almost never a good idea, on my side of the fence.

Or if this thing wasn't Albus Dumbledore, that would mean I especially didn't want it smelling blood in the water.

In recent years, I'd seen a lot of things, from illusion-weaving apprentices, to that one green-toothed Lady of the Sidhe replacing Georgia Borden on her wedding day, to freaking naagloshi, changing size, form, and sound at a moment's notice.

Bottom line was, it was hard to trust that anyone I didn't know was who they said they were.

"Can you bleed for me?" I asked gruffly. I'm sure that, as old as he was, he'd seen the 'disgruntled wizard' act before. That didn't mean I wasn't living it these days.

"Oh, I don't think that's entirely necessary, Mr. Dresden-"

"It is if you want me to work with you," I shot back before he'd completely finished. Blood looking human wasn't a guarantee of humanity, but it ruled out all sorts of things. Vampires of any Court, (save Jade, seeing as I knew nothing about them,) faeries, goblins, ghouls, and a host of other nasties. It wasn't a promise of humanity, but it was as close as there was for a single test.

Nodding affably, almost as if he was humoring me, he waved a thin, knobby stick, and in the air before him hovered a small, simple dagger.

Whoa. I mean, there were ways to fake things like that, maybe it was an illusion or something else designed to trick my physical senses, but if it was what it looked like, he'd just pulled matter out of the Nevernever _without_ opening a Way, and put it together how _he_ wanted it.

After confirming with my wizard's senses that it was not an illusion, and in fact shaped, will-hardened ectoplasm, I watched avidly as he drew the dagger across the top of his forearm, sleeve rolled away from the rivulets of blood that bubbled from the shallow cut, and let the knife fade away.

That was interesting. When his will and energy no longer supported its existence, rather than revert to the gelatinous form of ectoplasm, and slowly vaporizing, it faded away, like a ghost in a bad movie, that finally got what it wanted. Perhaps it was sent back to the Nevernever as raw materials?

 _Now isn't the time to geek out about magic, Harry. Plenty of time for that later._

"Well, you look pretty human, and so does your blood," I allowed, stepping off of Demonreach's shore, and onto the Whatsup Dock. "So how are we getting where we're going?"

"Ah, just a simple portkey trip, and we're there."

I nodded sagely. Of _course_ I knew what a portkey was. How could I not, when my brother owned a boat that I ended up ferrying myself and others to and from my sanctum in every time the world was ending?

The marina could be called a port, right?

When he pulled out an old, well-knitted sock, though, I worried just a bit.

"Grab on then, and we'll make our way, hm?"

Dubiously, I reached out and grabbed onto the sock.

With a grandfatherly smile, and a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, he said "Reese's peanut butter cups."

And with that, the hand that had sneakily wrapped around my stomach crushed it, yanked, the world flashed white, and I was elsewhere.

After I finished emptying my breakfast on the cobblestone path leading up to the castle's grand main doorway, I glared up at Dumbledore.

"A little warning next time, huh?"

"Oh, my. Have you never traveled by portkey before, Mr. Dresden?"

Childishly, I wanted to mock him as some small, petty revenge, but it was pointless. Besides, he'd be my boss for the year. Best to avoid getting under his skin until absolutely necessary, as demanded by my pride.

"No," I grumbled, climbing to my feet and wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. "I usually take a bus." Sadly, the Blue Beetle had gone where no mechanic could follow, and whenever I went into Chicago from my place on Demonreach, I was stuck with the overcrowded bucket of sweat and misery.

Maybe that's bitterness talking.

Thankfully, when I stood, I could see that none of what was formerly a doughnut and coffee had gotten on my duster, or the flannel shirt and jeans I wore under it.

My boots were, sadly, a different story.

Muttering, I started walking for the entrance, Dumbledore walking beside me, a bemused look on his face. Standing in front of the great doors, I glowered at them. Mostly because I wasn't sure how to open them, the knockers being a good four feet above my head on the positively mammoth stone building, and each looking like it weighed half a ton in wood and iron. I could probably push one, maybe both, open, if I had to… and if I avoided the iron lining and studding the red, silver, blue, and yellow doors. Butters had made it clear that avoiding leaning on the mantle whenever I could, in the long run, would cause less damage to my body, and help it to deal with the stress I'd put on it, and the stress I'd put on it again, the next time the Nickel-Heads came around, or the White Council got on my ass about something, or Mab had an errand… or, Hell's Bells, I hadn't thought about it in a while, but what if Mavra came back to town? Sure, I could probably take her in a straight up fight these days without too much trouble, but the thing about Mavra was, she's _smart._ Like any good wizard, she knew that you can prepare for anything, given the proper time. Sure, sometimes the best way to prepare is to make a bug-out bag and warm up the car, but anything can be dealt with. With the word of Kemmler in her hands, delivered by, ah, some unknown wizard… or witch… I didn't like thinking of what the Vampire sorceress could do.

And I had it on good authority, from one of the people in this world that could really kill me if he wanted to, that all it would take was a tall building, the element of surprise, and a high-powered sniper rifle,

The glower slipped from my face. It was _not_ the time to be thinking about everything that could hit the fan in Chicago, when I couldn't be there to cut the power to it. Or, failing that, catch the spray.

With my face.

Stepping up beside me, the elderly wizard smiled at the door, and with another flick of his wrist, the doors calmly swung inwards, with the _thud_ of a massive bolt being shunted to the side, and the slight creak of old, but well-cared-for hinges.

Which was baffling. There was no way he'd put in the effort to craft his own spell just for opening big doors dramatically. Equally improbable that whoever had taught him had made one and taught him. Unless of course it was one of the first spells he learned. His _Flickum bicus._

Which, granted, wouldn't be the weirdest starter spell I'd heard of. Ramirez had started off with a shoe-tying spell, which was needlessly complex and difficult to execute for so simple an act. Sure, it helped to learn finer control of basic forces, but… it seemed so mundane a thing to create a spell for. At least with candle lighting, you're dealing with one of the primal forces of the material world, an elemental entity through which you channel your will.

Reducing magic to lacing up your boots felt irreverent, almost disrespectful of its power and majesty.

Then again, I'm a magic geek. I love magic, and I believe in it as a force for good. I think of it as beautiful, wondrous, and amazing, even if it's a daily occurrence for me. And I know there are those who think of it as something… less than that. Not the primal powers of creation harnessed by human will and intellect, but a really big, really complex multi-tool.

So maybe from that standpoint, shoe-tying and door-opening spells are just one more facet of that tool.

We walked in, past an old, hunching figure who growled about vomit in his halls, a gray and black cat weaving around and between his legs as he walked a mop over to the entrance.

Which I would've apologized for. Had he not threatened to hang me up by my ankles. So instead, I simply maintained my glower, and led the way inside of the castle.

Which, admittedly, was not my best move. I mean, the castle is seven stories tall, and as big as anything, which left me a lot of room to get lost. I also attracted a bit of an audience in paintings following and chuckling at me by the time we found the room we were looking for. We were somewhere on the third floor, after many minutes wandering in which I refused to ask the old man for directions, and he happily walked alongside me, a lightly amused, grandfatherly smile lighting his face, from the small twitches of his beard, to the merry twinkling of his eyes, when he stopped me with a hand on the shoulder, and indicated a room to our right.

Ignoring how I jerked and twitched to bring my staff around, almost moving to brain him, he said "This will be the Defense room for the year. Feel free to set it up however you'd like, and meet us in the Great Hall for dinner around six o'clock. Your quarters adjoin to this room through the door beside the chalkboard. Feel free to familiarize yourself with the text as needed, and check the schedule for any important dates, class times, and breaks." His smile widened until he was levelling a full-on beam at me. "Welcome to Hogwarts, Mr. Dresden." With that, he swept away.

"Yeah," I said to myself, looking the classroom up and down. "Welcome to Hogwarts, Harry."

* * *

Hogwarts, I would learn, was very much alive. Outside of just the paintings, the building itself seemed to live and breathe, stairways shifting at slightly different times every day, more or less according with how urgent things were. Most weekdays had priority on punctuality, while the weekends were far more relaxed, sometimes changing almost at random.

And the feeling of the place. It felt so… comfortable. Safe.

I almost let that overtake me, after I'd settled things down. It had waited until I'd gotten my things settled there before springing that on me.

That's how I knew it was false.

It was very much the opposite of Demonreach… but it was still a _genius loci._ For all that Dumbledore sounded as if he had never encountered one the other day, I wondered if he knew Hogwarts had something that helped those living there to love living there.

Probably. Hell's Bells, it was possible he'd just pretended not to know about them to put me at ease.

Or worse… he knew about them, and this was _his_ sanctum. He _was_ the head honcho. Maybe just like my job as Warden of Demonreach, the Headmaster title was more than just that. Maybe bonding with the _genius loci_ was automatic, with the position.

And from my memory of Demonreach's psychic assault, before I'd shown myself worthy to it, and it allowed me to take my place as its Warden, Hogwarts was every bit as powerful as Demonreach…

And less than a year ago, I'd seen that it took both Ladies of the Winter and Summer Courts, plus a whole mess of Sidhe and other assorted Fae on top of that, to actually _beat_ Demonreach in sheer strength.

And that was with the spirit just enduring, rather than fighting back. Though, admittedly, that was what it did best.

When I'd settled into my room at Hogwarts, emotions of comfort, safety, warmth, and _home_ that I hadn't felt since my apartment burned down sprung on me.

Needless to say, I immediately threw my mental shields into place until I puzzled all of this out. I kept them on after that anyways. It didn't block all of it, but it was better I wasn't caught up in feeling safe that I miss very real potential dangers around me.

Paranoia. Destroying that warm, fuzzy feeling since the beginning of time.

I didn't actually meet any of the other professors that night, save for a goggle-eyed woman who predicted 'great strife' in my future, Dumbledore once again, the Mop Man, an elderly man with a false foot, more scars than I hoped ever to receive, one wildly-spinning, false, and obviously enchanted eye, and no sense of personal space when warning you not to do anything he'd make me regret. (He reminded me more of the late Donald Morgan than I would've liked. I'd come to respect the man, especially after his sacrifice, and didn't want to think of how much I still hated and resented him for how he treated me.) The last staff member that I met was a sallow man, with greasy black hair, who wore a permanent scowl etched into his features.

I tried not to judge. I'd found a similar expression on my face more than a few times, in the not-too-distant past.

More importantly though, about two weeks after I arrived, the students showed up. It was strange, looking down on them from the high table, and stranger still being surrounded by so many young practitioners. When I was that age, the only practitioners I knew of were myself, Elaine, and our mentor-slash-attempted-enthraller. Of course, he had intentionally isolated the both of us from the White Council, and this society too, if he knew of it, so that's not very fair to me, I suppose.

I'd gotten over that a long time ago, but it still hurt every now and then. Like an old battle-wound. Hell, I had enough of those to go around, even if the Mantle numbed that pain, these days. As long as I didn't meet one of the pissed off Little Folk, intent on jamming an iron nail into my shoulder.

Damn, but it hurt when all that old, lingering pain shot through my body again. All the worse for its absence for so long.

Lost in thoughts of old pain, I didn't notice the old man standing until he cleared his throat for the attention of everyone in the hall. I hated just a little bit that I sat up a bit straighter, and immediately gave it to him.

No matter the looks, regardless of the long beard, full head of hair, and sheer height that was in complete contrast with my grandfather's empty, shining head, stocky build, and thick, sun-tanned and field-hardened body, the commanding air he held reminded me of the one who taught me the power, beauty, and wonder of the Art.

"To our new First Years, Welcome! To our returning students, Welcome Back! We have just a few things to cover this year before we can tuck in, and I ask that you all bear with me."

I tuned the man out, as I surveyed the students. Some of the students, mostly the older ones were… drenched. That made little sense, seeing as it was as sunny as the UK seemed to get outside that day, and only the youngest went over the lake in the boats, so none of the older students had a chance to fall in. One gangly red-headed kid seemed especially sullen about it, and I did my best to put the pieces together.

It really fell into place, when I managed to spy the red rubber, broken and hanging limply from his black robes.

And when an intact one, presumably filled with water, flew towards my face from seeming invisibility.

I stood with a start, a curse fighting for purchase on my lips, even as I pushed out " _Defendarius!_ " Immediately, a blue, rounded plane of energy appeared before me, and the water balloon exploded against it. I was almost surprised to see plain old water run down the shield. I had half-expected a potion of some kind, or an acid. As it rolled down in small rivulets, I felt the shield spell fizzle out, the effort I pushed into it slipping away from my metaphysical grasp.

Or an ooze monster that would coalesce and attack me. I'd had that kind of day before.

A scowl lit my face as I looked around. " _Ventas Servitas,_ " I muttered, and my staff, which had been leaned up against the wall behind me, shot into my hand, brought to me by a column of air. Reaching out with my wizard's senses, I searched out the invisible enemy. Waterballoons weren't much of a threat. It couldn't keep me from doing much magic, as most would stop running before long, and there simply wasn't enough to put a real stop to my magic.

It wasn't like I was in real danger.

Not from _that_ , anyways.

"Oooooooh!" shrieked a man's high, reedy voice, from thin air. "Looks like the _new_ Professor doesn't like to play! Peevesy can take care of _that_ though!"

If my once-apprentice had taught me anything when she fought beside me, an invisible enemy could wreak havoc with you. Kill you easily, with the proper tools.

 _There_. I carefully didn't respond as my wizard's senses, which I'd nearly given up on locating my mystery aggressor with, in such a magically over-saturated area, found my enemy.

But, rather than finding a specific wizard among over a hundred of them, I found a cold spot, floating in the air in the general vicinity of where the balloon came from.

My eyes narrowed as I raised my staff, pointing it at the spot, and shouting the same phrase again. Thunderously, I uttered " _Ventas Servitas!_ "

I heard a chuckling at first. "You think a little wind will dry us all off, is that it?" It had the tinny, not-quite there quality of a ghost, as I'd expected. The voice, though, came from the right of where my spell was, by just a bit.

I redirected it, and heard a strangled yelp of surprise, as my enemy suddenly became visible. A pale, almost entirely rotten-egg colored man landed on the staff table before me. My eyes narrowed as the former man shrank away, the small spirit, (especially compared to my six-and-a-half-feet,) had eyes full of fear.

"I'm not much for Ectomancy," I grouse, "but I do know a thing or two about exorcising poltergeists like you. Headmaster?" I asked, turning to the utterly dumbfounded man.

I realized, shortly after, that the room had gone silent, and everyone was staring at me. Some in shock, others in awe, and in the case of the four ghosts intermingling with the students at their tables, abject terror.

"Well now," The elderly man said, recovering from his shock rather quickly, "I don't think so drastic an action is necessary. Peeves has never been more than playful, in his own way, and I'd hate to leave a so comparatively docile poltergeist without a haunt." There were quite a few murmurs of disagreement at that, mostly from the students. The redheaded one shouted something about "booting the bugger out the door," but I shrugged.

"Don't mess with me, my class time, or my experiments, and I won't kick you out of the castle. Got me?"

Nodding, fervent and frightened, followed by a quick, subservient "Yes sir! Thank you Headmaster! Thank you, sir!" With that, the ghost vanished, and quickly afterwards, his cool presence disappeared from my senses.

Sitting back down, to a surprising round of applause, I smirked just a little. I was a little shocked at how impressed they'd been at my display.

I frowned when I considered that, though. If _that_ was impressive for them, what did that say for how they dealt with ghosts? Or was their evocation really so awful that three simple spells, none particularly powerful, and one assisted by my staff, were impressive to them?

Dumbledore held a hand up to cut off the whispering and murmurs that broke out as the applause faded. "As I was saying, we have a new Defense teacher in our midst. I would like to introduce to you all Harry Blackstone Cop-"

I jerked in my seat at the mention of my first middle name, and was up and roaring at him over his words midway through my second, "THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

I'd felt the Name, even partially spoken, resonate in me. He knew my Name. My true Name, he had perfectly pronounced, and practically given to over a hundred young, impulsive novices, who had more energy, willfullness, and idiocy crammed into one finger than the most hyperactive of my retinue of the Little Folk had in a week. They could trade my Name away for so much, or use it themselves. Hell, they could be tortured for it, by the wrong people! Like Nicodemus Archeleone-

My blood froze further, at that thought. He and Anduriel could hear through any shadow he wanted to, if the place it is spoken isn't properly hallowed or protected ground. Did this count? Or did Nicodemus and his Nickelheads have over three fourths of my Name now?

Almost everyone in the hall flinched at my voice. Only Dumbledore himself, the greasy-haired Potions Professor, I think I heard him referred to as, and the grizzled old man eyeing me from the end of the table.

"You do _not_ ," I seethed, "simply go giving a man's Name out! Not without knowing who you're giving it to! Not without knowing the man's enemies, or what they're capable of! Not without _asking the guy first!_ " Turning to the students, I bit out angrily, "I'm Mr. Dresden, and that's all you need to know." Sitting down, glaring murderously at Dumbledore, whose eyes no longer twinkled, but instead held a grim confusion in them.

"As you say, Mr. Dresden," he continued, without missing a beat, his voice exactly as it had been before my interruption. To the students, "Mr. Dresden has come all the way from Chicago, in the United States, to teach Defense from his many experiences with Dark and dangerous creatures. I am certain he will be an invaluable instructor, and I hope that you all enjoy learning from him, and can benefit from his knowledge."

The twinkle returned to his eyes as he turned to the other side of the table, where the man who seemed to be a veteran of many a lawn-mowing accident glowered moodily.

"And this, will be our new Chief of Security, Ex-Auror, Mr. Mad-Eye Moody. Now, to forestall any worries from you, we are not anticipating any trouble this year. We are, however, going to be hosting a certain event that we believe it necessary to prepare for in every conceivable way, regardless of how likely we think it that anything will go wrong."

Which, I translated in my head, meant that trouble was brewing, and they didn't want a panic to make it any worse.

"Because of this event that we will be hosting, I am sad to say that there will be no Quidditch matches, nor will there be a Quidditch Cup." Only pausing briefly to allow a few of the students, mostly those from the red and gold table, and most of all an older boy who stood, raving about his chances for a great year, and for how this could hurt how he'd be drafted, he continued on. "Instead, we will be featuring the first Triwizard Tournament in over 200 years!"

Despite his tone, the look of the man's eyes showed he didn't approve of this competition. Vindictively, I was glad. He deserved to be uncomfortable, unhappy even, after nearly blurting my _Name_ to a room full of hormonal and insecure _teenagers!_

"We, along with groups from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons' Academies will each have a champion, chosen by an impartial judge, who will compete for honor, fame, prestige, and glory, as well as a one-thousand galleon prize!"

There were shouts and interest at this development, though the one kid, the one who had shouted at hearing that this 'Quidditch' thing was cancelled, still groused and groaned. The redheaded boy who had been soaked by the poltergeist looked especially interested, while the two kids who seemingly sat with him looked as if they were leaning away from even mention of this tournament.

"Due to the dangerous nature of this tournament, which led to its now-lifted ban, there will be an age-limit placed on entrants. Only wizards and witches of age, and capable of making their own legal decisions, may compete in this tournament." There were more than a few boos at this, and I tried to emulate the aloof, sneering professor beside me in ignoring them. "Let us remember, this tournament is meant to foster inter-school relations. Let us be welcoming and gracious hosts to our fellow witches and wizards, when they arrive. Now, I believe that is all, so..." Raising his hands, his smile grew genuine once more, as his eyes lit up, and he said with joy, "Let's enjoy the food!"

* * *

 **Yep, I'm blowing off other projects again, this time for the stereotypical Professor Harry story. I hope I've captured his character fairly well. I plan to take this all the way through Fourth Year, at least, but I am working on other projects (in spite of appearances) and work on this will likely take a back seat to those original and fan works of fiction.**

 **As an excuse for why Another Potter's updated chapter two is taking so long…**

 **It's so** _ **boring.**_ **Not the story, or the idea, but writing something I feel like I already have. It's so hard dealing with the Durselys, when I just want to throw Clarissa into Hogwarts already! On top of that, months ago, Highschool had gotten a bit crazy, work-load-wise, and now, I'm just discovering that college will by** _ **insane**_ **, when it comes to the effort and responsibility I'll have. It's a little scary.**

 **And we'll just forget those two months of Summer I had more or less completely free… We will, won't we?**

 **Also, fun fact, likes obliterating my formatting when I move things here. So that's fun.**

 **Correction. _Some_ of my formatting gets obliterated. The rest just lamely hides with the rest of the text.**

 **Send me any comments, complaints, or corrections, and I'll get on it ASAP. So, like, in a month.**

 **Good Luck, and Happy FanFic-ing!**

 **Monkey Typewriter**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I had a rather intense discussion with phantomdemon2 over how feasible it was for Dumbledore to know Harry's Name… but I think we can all chalk it up to Dumbledore being a wily bastard. (For now.) Seeing as phantomdemon2 gave me a fantastic idea for a different scene for later on, one that I can't possibly pass up. I'd like to thank him or her for giving me something great to think on, and for offering a detailed appreciation for the source material.**

* * *

My anger had been on a low simmer the entire meal. I hardly tasted the food, as I sent repeated death glares at the rather confused Headmaster, who seemed to be doing his best to grin and bear it, trying to project a sense of joviality and _nothing's wrong here_ to the students.

I was on the edge of that. It felt very much like that sense of security, of home, and as I hid behind my mental defenses, they faded once more. I was edging towards _absolutely certain_ on the whole 'genius loci' thing, though with how clueless the Headmaster appeared to be on the subject of Names, and who knew what else, I was beginning to suspect that his use of the spirit of the castle to influence minds was unintentional, or perhaps instinctual.

But when the feast ended, and the children found their ways to their rooms, the simmer boiled over, and I found myself before a gargoyle.

"Password?" The apparently animated creature rumbled. I hid my surprise as best as I could, gritting my teeth, and bent over to look it in the eyes as my hand tightened around my staff, my will gathering just in case.

"How about," I hiss, "You let me through, and you don't get smashed to tiny bits. Did I get the password right?"

I didn't know that animated statues could let out an audible gulp until that moment, but a primal part of me that I couldn't blame entirely on Winter enjoyed the animated masonry's obvious fear.

It shrugged, getting out of my way. "Close enough," it muttered to itself, almost consolingly.

I stormed up the strange, spiraling escalator-type stairs, a snarl stealing its way across my face, replacing the light glower that had adorned it all throughout dinner and into the night thus far.

"Come in," the elderly wizard had just begun to call as I burst through the door, stalking right up to the large wooden desk at which Dumbledore sat, looking up at me with a curious, mildly worried expression on his face, as if worried that there was something wrong with me.

"Where did you get my Name?" I demanded without preamble.

His eyebrows shot up. "Well," he began, his lips quirking into a small smile under his beard. My eyes narrowed in annoyance, at his blithe attitude at something so important. "when you get to be my age, you tend to make friends in a few different circles. Suffice it to say, I am an old friend of Ebenezar McCoy. He tells me you are his apprentice," he prodded with interest, trying to draw some sort of information out of me.

"I am a wizard, Mr. Dumbledore," I said lowly, the runes etched into my staff glowing ever so slightly, in a warning blue. My voice was controlled, but full of a slow-boiling rage. "One of the most powerful practitioners of The Art in existence today. Warden of Demonreach, Knight of Winter, and as of right now, Extremely Pissed Off. Do _not_ presume to lie to me!"

Ebenezar McCoy was one of the only people to truly know my Name, and one of the only other people on the planet whose Name I knew in return. Once he'd been convinced of my mental shields' fidelity, while he was completing my training Yoda style, (read: with hard work and repetition,) he had shared his own Name with me, and asked me- _not_ commanded, or ordered me- to do the same.

I had.

And with that exchanging of Names came an understanding that we would never share them with another. That we'd sooner die than allow an enemy to have so easy an avenue of assault on someone as important to us as our master or apprentice, respectively. Of course, we'd both changed since those days working magic for practice and refinement on his farm, myself far more violently from the many veritable supernatural shitstorms that love to hit Chicago for some reason, but as we changed, so too had our Names.

Even so, we knew each other well, and we each had a pretty good idea of the things that had changed the other. I'd told Ebenezar about all of my major escapades Hard not to, when he had done everything he could to keep me alive and whole in the face of the Council's desire to destroy someone taught by DuMorne the rogue Warden, going out on a limb for the idiot son of his deceased apprentice. He'd shared quite a bit with me, in the pursuit of regaining my trust, after I'd learned about his being the Blackstaff, and had more than done so in recent years, helping me to save my daughter from the monsters of the Red Court.

From that, and through keeping in rather close contact lately, in order to direct the Grey Council, it wasn't impossible that we both still knew each other's Names. Just… incredibly unlikely, though less likely things had come together to bite me in the ass before, and, occasionally, to help me. And because we both knew each other's Names, that understanding of mutual defense still bound us.

And to add to that, the man was my grandfather, and his deceased apprentice my mother... I could be reasonably sure that he hadn't shared my Name…

Not of his own accord, at any rate.

"I will ask you again," I said in a falsely calm voice, the elder wizard's face hard and unyielding. He wasn't intimidated, not that I'd expected him to be, seeing as we were in _his_ house. But he knew that I'd called his bluff, and he certainly wasn't happy about it. "How did you learn my Name?"

"As I said, I am a… friend of Ebenezar's. I learned of you through him, and he is where I learned your name." Holding up a hand to forestall my snarling call of 'Bullshit,' he continued tiredly. "However, he… did not tell me. I am a master Legilimens, Mr. Dresden, and Ebenezar is quite old, and set in the ways of mental defense he was taught as an apprentice himself. It wasn't difficult to pull the memories from his mind of you. To learn of you, the sort of man you were, and, of course, your name."

I was horrified. This man… "You broke one of the Laws?" I hissed, pulling my staff in front of me, as if to ward off any strikes of his. He made no move to attack me.

Sure, some of the Laws were a bit overkill in their enforcement, but he was talking about _raiding_ someone's _mind_. I'd seen firsthand what sort of damage a fight could do to someone. If Molly had been any less capable in her defense from Corpsetaker… chances were, she would be a vegetable now. If Ebenezar had noticed and resisted, and worse, if Dumbledore had pressed his attack…

As old and powerful Ebenezar was, the idea of him and Dumbledore squaring off left me with a shiver trying to work its way down my spine. Those two throwing down, with no hesitation and no holds barred…

Chances were, neither of them would walk away from such a fight. At least not whole.

"As I understand it," Dumbledore began, "The law your White Council enforces is 'Thou Shalt Not Invade the Mind of Another.' I didn't invade so much as I… dropped by uninvited. I didn't attack or change any of his thoughts. I caused no damage, neither to his defenses nor his mental health. I simply found what I was looking for, committed it to memory, and moved on."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You-" I cut off the snarl and arrested my motion for a brief second, as Winter swirled and pulsed through my veins, roaring right alongside my own anger. He… He had so brazenly, so _cavalierly_ rifled through my grandfather's _thoughts._ And now, now he was talking about it as if it were no more than just a jaunty stroll through someone else's yard!

I stood frozen, coiled to strike. For one second.

Two.

With an angry roar of " _Forzare!_ " I turned, letting out a vicious wave of red force at a table filled with small, whirring silver mechanisms that were releasing small, quickly dissipated puffs of colored smoke intermittently. The spell was sloppy, incredibly so by my standards as of late, and seeing as I was using a focus. I could have hardened my Will, sharpened my Rage, into a pure force of kinetic force, almost no energy lost in heat or light.

But I didn't want to focus it. No, I wanted to vent it, and as that little show of force and destruction blasted the silvery mechanisms into small broken pieces of scrap, the boiling pit of anger in my gut was quelled ever so slightly as I threw some of it through a spell, tempering it just enough to realize that Winter was pushing at me harder than normal, driving me to fight, to protect myself and those that belonged to _me_ , and to end this ambiguous threat before it decided to make itself more overt.

I managed to press the Mantle down enough to think clearly.

I was still mad, but it was mostly my own, human emotion now, rather than the cold, raw predation that came with the world's worst part-time job. I'd need to be careful… The Mantle always got stronger as Fall came around and gave way to Winter… for obvious reasons.

"Why me?" I asked, my voice just shy of an animalistic growl at first, slowly giving way to progressively more human words. "Why would you meet up with Ebenezar looking for me?"

His eyebrows slanted at me in mild annoyance as his gaze moved away from his toys littering the floor, before growing grave. "Because, Mr. Dresden. With how things have been going these past years, I needed to find a proper teacher for my students, if I wanted them to have a chance at surviving what is to come."

"Please, allow me to tell you about the last few years we've had, and what I expect may happen this year."

* * *

Stalking away from the Headmaster's office, I cursed under my breath.

Now, usually I'm not one for swearing. I like to let out my anger in _constructive_ ways.

Or very, very destructive ones. It varies by the hour.

But the situation the Headmaster dropped into my lap fully deserved it.

 _A kid from the suburbs, growing up knowing jack all about magic, chosen by some prophecy to kill the strongest wizard they've seen in years? Yeah, sounds like it'll turn out just peachy._

And worse, the kid was untrained. Three years of magical education, with only one decent teacher around to show him how to defend himself.

" _And what,"_ I had none too politely asked the aging Headmaster, " _Have you done to rectify the problem? Have you given him special training? Or maybe found him someone else to show him to fight? Does he have a guard for whenever he steps out of the castle?_

The old man had looked at me like I was crazy. Like nothing could possibly go wrong under his watch, and told me that he deserved a normal childhood, before he has to play his part.

"Doesn't that old idiot see?" I snarled under my breath. "If he doesn't get good _now_ , he won't _survive_ his part to play.

 _At least the old coot sprang for some decent wards around his house,_ I reminded myself. And he did have a family… The threshold for a house, the metaphysical foundation on which Wards were layered and placed, would be all the stronger for a full, loving family supporting their nephew.

Making my way back into my quarters, I shook my head, and pulled out my cauldron, lid covered by a fresh, clean flannel I'd yet to use, and dragged the oversized bag I'd brought with me to the castle behind me.

I left the flannel on, as I went down a few flights of stairs. What was inside it was a bit _sensitive_ for a castle full of curious eyes.

My classroom, and the attached office and bedroom, were on the third floor of the castle, and I took three flights of stairs to get to my destination.

That's right. The Dungeon. The incredibly rich nobleman's version of a basement.

The room immediately across from what I had been told was the Potions classroom was open, and was indeed, as the greasy haired man had told me, (Silas? Severus...? Sally?) there was indeed a fully-equipped brewing lab. One cauldron in specific looked especially well-cared for, though it was clearly the oldest in a room of ancient ones. The outside was thoroughly oxidized a sickly pale green, but the rim atop it, and the inside, were a thoroughly scrubbed, almost healthy-looking, and well cared-for bronze.

I avoided it, and the ingredients arranged methodically around it, as well as the other vaguely-clean cauldrons set up around the room. I'd brought my own for a reason.

Setting the cauldron down above a flame, quickly and surreptitiously locking the door off from the outside world, and Listening intently for any foot-traffic outside, I made certain that I was alone.

Then I pulled the human skull from the cauldron.

"Bob," I groaned at the inanimate skull. "Potion time."

Almost immediately, Bob's eye-sockets flickered to life, filled with an orange glow reminiscent of candlelight. The skull seemed to scowl at me.

"I still can't believe it, Harry. You're bringing me to a school teeming with fresh young girls, nubile little witches ready to do _anything_ for the perfect grade, and you won't take advantage of it!"

"Bob," I reminded him with as much patience as I could muster, "we've been over this. It's not ethical for a teacher to have sex with students. It's even less ethical to do that when said teacher is in a relationship at the moment."

"Is that what you call it?" he snorted.

Don't ask me how a skull can snort. I've long since given up trying to figure Bob out.

"As a matter of fact, Bob, I do. Can we get back to the matter at hand?"

"Of course!" He cried. "All those fresh young girls, and worse, you won't even let me be awake when they're around! Come on, Harry, I'm not asking for much, just a few choice peeks at the more _developed_ girls, and-"

"Bob." I pushed passed my gritted teeth. "Potions. Now."

"Fine, fine," he sighed, "What sorts of potions do you want to brew?"

"Hm. I'm not really sure. I only have the one cauldron, so I guess we'll keep it to one for the night."

Bob's eye-lights seemed to brighten. "What about-"

"No. Circle. Demon." I carefully didn't think of just who was in that circle with me, while the demon hammered away at the construct of will surrounding and protecting us.

I had moved on from loving Susan, for the most part, at least. When you feel as strongly for someone as I did for her, you never really stop. Some part of you always hangs onto that hope, and the pain that comes with it. It was the same part of me that shrivelled up and died when I'd had to slit her throat.

"Fine," Bob groused. "No love potions. It's not like you need much help on that front, Harry," the skull snickered. "How many times have you and Murphy…?"

"She's in the _hospital_ , Bob. It's a little tough to focus on that kind of stuff when your ribs scream with every breath." I spoke, of course, from hard experience.

"Tough," Bob condescended. "Not impossible. Besides, hospital sex is the _best_! You know, after boat sex and anger sex."  
"Potions, Bob," I sighed, rapping on his skull with my knuckles. "What have you got for me?"

"Well, escape potions are still on the table. And of course, we could do a strength or durability potion. Say, what happened to that belt buckle you had me help with? The one that made you buff for a while?"

"Hell's Bells, Bob, it nearly put me in the hospital all on its own. I'm not exactly jumping to put it back on." The bear-shaped belt buckle he was talking about had been buried deep in my lab, once upon a time. Then my lab got burned down. "Besides, it's gone. Lost in the fire."

"I don't know, Harry. From what I know about you, you can never have too many 'Oh Shit' buttons. Besides, Butters saw some of the things in that the BFS has in its version of lock-up. Some of your stuff survived the fire. Maybe it's still around."

"Then why wouldn't Karrin-"

"Maybe some of Marcone's guys are the ones who dug it up, and he decided not to arm the guy who keeps promising to destroy his entire empire?" Bob suggested. "Anyways, what are we talking about this for? We were talking potions, right?"

I rubbed the bridge of my nose at the skull's antics. "If only I could be as on-topic as you."

"It's okay, Harry," the spirit of air and intellect sniffed at me, through a skull without a nose. "Not all of us can be quasi-immortal spirits with searing good looks and incredible hair."

"You're a collection of colored lights," I complained.

"You saw me in my skull," he reminded me, "you know what you saw!"

"Fine, whatever. Let's make a… screw it, a flight potion."

"You sure about that, Harry? Last time you tried some full-on flight magics, you ended up halfway up a tree with a broken broomstick."

"Don't remind me," I groused. "Let's try it anyways, I guess. Practice makes perfect."

"It's your neck, Harry," Bob granted. "Break it how you want to. Just be sure you leave a note to your new boss to get me back to Butters- he has an internet connection." Surprisingly going _un_ spoken was that with the internet, came porn.

"Speaking of broomsticks," I began, having pulled out the first drops of rain from a cloud, for the base, and a falcon's feather for the spirit, at Bob's direction, "I thought I'd ask you to look over my newest staff, while I've got you here, maybe help me make a new _boom_ stick, too. Let me know if there are any improvements to be made, and give me some suggestions on the carving." I actually had brought an appropriately sized piece of wood from Demonreach, free of knots and any other imperfections that would complicate the crafting of a new tool, according to my _intellectus_.

"Sure, Harry, I can help make sure you don't blow your fingers off. Oh, and for touch, a gust of wind."

Giving him a look, I pressed some of my will into the air, and with a whisper of " _Ventas Servitas_ ," I began to gently push some air into the potion-

"Stop!" Bob cried. Giving him an annoyed look, I silently demanded a reason. "How many birds do you know that fly in dungeons, Harry?"

I sighed. He was right, as usual. I decided I'd get the gust of wind last, maybe put it into a jar, maybe, with a bit of metaphysical elbow grease.

"I'm assuming we should try the cry of a bird, for the sound? Eagle? Falcon?"

"No, no," Bob said, almost distracted. "I think that's where we went wrong last time. You associate predators with threats. Vampires, Naagloshi, angry Genowskwa, they all kid of ruined most predatory animals for you. Eagles and falcons are a bit too angry in your head to be associated with the freedom of flight. I think that maybe the last potion got your mental wires crossed. Let's try something non-threatening. A pigeon, or maybe a swan, or something you wouldn't assume wants you or anything else dead."

"What about something not fat or a complete ass?" I groused, remembering a particular trip to the park with my dad, when I was maybe four, in which a swan took a chunk out of my forearm for getting too close.

"I don't know Harry. I think the swan's got you pretty good on the whole 'ass' thing. What about a seagull? They're annoying and don't know when to quit. Remind you of anyone?"

I snorted, but it got me thinking. If the goal was to get something like me, and something that wouldn't say 'predator' in my brain rather than 'flight,' maybe ocean birds were the way to go. They dealt with something bigger and badder than them all the time.

"Pelicans?" I offered.

"Nope." Bob's eyelights shrunk like they did only when he was scared, serious, or both. "Have you ever seen those things hunt?" The skull shuddered where it sat on the shelf.

"Are you really scared of Pelicans?" I asked, more incredulous than mocking. "You? The guy who ripped those shades to shreds in seconds? Mr. T-Rex, Stone Lion, and Magic-Tools?"

"Hey, you don't get to talk until you've been a fellow bird, just minding your own business, when one of those monsters saunters up like it's not an issue and scoops you up like a damn pretzel." The skull shook again. "That was one of my favorite bodies to use. Mr. Ruffles the Pidgeon."

The guy actually looked _forlorn_ at that, never mind the fact that Bob was not a sentimental being, nor was he particularly fond of most animals. Certainly don't mind the fact that his skull managed to portray so complex an emotion without doing much more than changing its lighting to a mere flickering in the eyes and a firm closing of its clacking jaw.

"I… I'm sure that Mr. Ruffles was a good bird." I assured Bob, uncertain.

"He made it so easy," Bob nearly wailed. "So easy to peek in those city windows!"

"I'm sure." There was the Bob I knew.

My mind wandered a bit through its options, before settling again. "What about a storm petrel? They only eat fish and things, right?"

All business again, Bob seemed to nod. "Yes, fish and plankton, if I remember rightly. Not a bad choice…" He hummed, giving me a brief look up and down. "Not bad at all. Those little idiots fly right into storms, if they have to. Reminds me a lot of you, except you don't _have_ to do half of the suicidal things you do."

I snorted, and nodded. Bob and I hadn't been dumb enough to suggest birds I didn't have samples from, and I went to fetch the cry from the rather large bag of mostly ingredients, and a few clothes, that I had brought.

"So how long do you think the potion will last me?" I asked, rubbing at my brow with the back of my hand, trying to ease the exhaustion away, which conveniently began hammering at me _after_ I started doing delicate work.

"Hm. Tough to say. Maybe as much as… ten minutes? Twenty?"

I whistled. Most potions I made lasted about three minutes at best. I wasn't _bad_ at making potions, but they tended to follow my evocation in being more focused on power than anything else. My potions tended to be good. Explosively so. But their staying power was… a bit lacking.

"Think you can give me a better estimate when it's done?" I asked. The skull hummed an affirmative, before advising me that I probably wasn't going to get a better time to steal away and grab that fresh gust of wind.

So, grabbing an unfilled jar and rushing off, I did just that.

* * *

It didn't take long for the hairs on the back of my neck to begin prickling away.

I ignored it as best as I could while surreptitiously monitoring the space behind me, stretching out with my wizard's senses, and Listening.

I didn't hear anything, but I sure felt it. Another cold spot, stronger, denser than the last, so that the chill aura seemed to bleed off into the world around it, bringing just a bit of its chill to the corporeal.

Another ghost.

Once I'd reached the front door, jar in my left hand, fist clenched ever so slightly over where I _wished_ I'd kept my staff on my right, I whirled to meet the ghost as calmly as I could.

As for my staff, I'd left it with Bob, so he could check my workmanship while I got the only ingredient we seemed to be missing.

Yeah. I know. All that paranoia, and I lose it when it really seems to count.

"You know," I said conversationally to the chill spot in my wizard's senses, eyes drilling a hole right through where the spirit paused at my look, "It's rude to follow somebody at night. Even more so when you don't give them the opportunity to _see_ you. Show yourself."

"Interesting," came the rasping, inflectionless voice, from no one discernible place. Slowly, a being faded into view, a pale figure coated generously with silver splotches of blood, and weighed down by manacles and their accompanying chains. At a closer look, I could see that they were thorn manacles, the sort that disrupted magic's flow through the body. The kind that I had a few horrible experiences with. Every now and again, the blood that dribbled slowly down his bodies, over or through his soaked robes, and to his feet would dangle, silver droplets growing fat and large, and like dewdrops on blades of grass that have overstayed their welcome, would fall, slowly evaporating into nothing.

"You _are_ an interesting one," declared the ghost with his rough, almost hissing intonation. "Wild, and untamed in your power, and yet you walk these halls freely."

"Yeah?" I asked, buying time to think of something sufficiently threatening to say to an ancient spook that had trailed me though it's haunt. Unlike the poltergeist I'd dealt with the day before, the power I could feel rolling off of this ghost was enough to actually hurt someone. That meant that, much like the far younger and friendlier Sir Stuart, he had kept a firm grasp on the memories that defined him, and could likely hurl around the same sort of firepower that I had as a ghost, with a far better feel for his limits than I'd had.

And the fact that I could see it without my Sight meant that the power it could toss around could actually manage to hurt the living. "Well I can promise you, I've got a good enough handle on it to send you through a wall. The hard way."

Raising a brow, the spirit raised a hand to me in a placating gesture, as if confronting a wild animal. "By my word, I meant no offense, and no threat to your person or character, Warden Dresden. I meant only to show my surprise, and my respect. You are the first of your sort to walk these halls, let alone teach in them. It should be... interesting, to learn of your methods."

"You'll have to take my class for that," I responded, only having relaxed marginally. Ghosts were, depending on who you asked, either human souls, or the imprints that those souls left behind. Either way, they were capable of lying. I wouldn't relax until I knew that this guy wasn't a threat for myself. "You're a little too tall, silver, and bloody to be a first year, and I think I'd have heard if you were enrolled here."

He chuckled, the sound like a stone skittering across polished marble. "You will soon learn, Warden Dresden, that the dead often have eyes all over this castle… The one renowned for the cunning and ambition of his former House most of all." With that, he slowly faded from view once more. Echoing from further and further, his voice came again. "You did a passable job… dealing with Peeves. Perhaps henceforth, you will find that the Headmaster pesters _you_ to keep him in line, rather than myself."

Stalking away when I could no longer sense the spirit, I continued outside, muttering to myself. "I already gave the poltergeist boundaries… I'm not going to make them any smaller unless he pisses me off." Or I absolutely had to. Contrary to popular belief in the greater magical community, I didn't like strong-arming people to get my way. It just so happened that sometimes, it was the only way to do things that wouldn't end up with someone else dead.

Then again, Dumbledore didn't strike me as the sort to respect the personal boundaries of others. Not when they were so minor when compared to the problems _he_ was dealing with.

"Gee Harry," I deadpanned unhappily, as I gathered a fresh gust of wind into a bottle, doing my best to pull it from as high up as possible. "Sound like anyone you know?"

I didn't like the comparison.

* * *

I came back to find Bob being held up at wand-point.

"Harry! He's gone mad! Help!"

I kneaded my brow with my left hand, and turned to the person holding up my assistant. "Why are you pointing that thing at my skull?" I asked without enmity.

Well, without much enmity. I still wasn't in the best of moods.

The man before me raised an unimpressed eyebrow, his face never turning fully to me, unwilling to take his eyes from what he probably perceived as a real threat. He even stepped back and turned partially to accommodate for me, so he was ready to respond at whoever struck first, between Bob and myself.

Not too shabby. Maybe I should invite him to the paranoia club.

That told me two things. The first was that he was a professional, or at least at that level. He knew how to handle threats, or potential threats, and he wasn't afraid to fight back. The second was that he wasn't willing to start a fight straight away. Which was nice, considering that Bob would lose any fight started with him, guaranteed, unless he was granted permission to move from his skull.

"I am holding 'your skull' at wand-point, Professor Dresden," he began somewhat haughtily, "because I believe it to be a Dark artifact of great power. Few tools and weapons have lasted long enough, or been infused with enough power, to develop a personality, let alone an entirely coherent intelligence. If this happens to be such an object, it is my _duty_ ," and that word he absolutely _spat_ , "to alert both the Headmaster and the authorities."

"Well, good thing we don't need to worry about that," I assured him, muscles tensing just in case he didn't buy what I was selling. It was only two steps to get to my staff, but something told me he'd let loose with an evocation before I could make it that far. Should I rely on my duster, or just let loose without a foci? I'd be at a disadvantage, of course, unless I used a preemptive strike as a distraction, before I retrieved my staff… Or I could instead raise a shield, and then rush to my staff…?

"And why," he drawled, eyes narrowing, but still carefully kept between Bob and I, so as to keep us both in his peripheral, "Is that of no concern?"

"Because," I reasoned simply, voice light, "The skull's possessed, not a sentient tool."

"Would you be willing to prove this?"

"Of course. Bob?"

"Yes, Harry?" Bob asked nervously.

"You have my permission to leave the skull for the next thirty seconds. Just long enough to show our friend here that you aren't the skull."

"Sure, sure," he replied, relieved. I would be too, if I was as strong as Bob, and basically given license to defend myself, and the one thing that kept me alive whenever the sun rose, should an angry man with a deadly weapon show up and point it at me.

Almost instantly, the collection of orange lights that consisted of Bob's spirit form flowed out of the eye sockets of the skull, and collected in a vaguely human-shaped cloud. A 'hand' raised in salute, and Bob's voice, slightly more resonant outside of the skull, spoke. "You see? We're all friends here. Now, lets all just put down the magical foci, and talk this out, yeah?"

"Hm. Sufficient," the sallow-skinned man sniffed, wand slowly lowering, before disappearing into his sleeve. "I suppose that an artifact would have a hard time, ejecting a constructed intelligence so quickly. My… apologies."

I nodded, muscles relaxing slightly, before retensing. "Crap, Bob! The potion, how is it? I was gone a little longer than I thought, is it-?"

"It's alright, Harry," Bob assured me. "We lost maybe a minute from it being overcooked, but if we hurry, it should still be pretty good on longevity." Slowly, he flooded back into the skull with a clack of his teeth. "Our threat-happy friend here turned down the heat before he decided I was the next Kemmler, so he probably saved us another two minutes."

I gave the man a grudging nod of thanks, before rushing to the cauldron and opening up the bottle I had the wind sealed in. With a murmur, a shake, a slight push of will, and a firm pat on the bottom of the container, the wind found its way into the simmering cauldron. I let it stew like that for a bit longer, before putting out the fire with a less 'pure' gust of wind I kicked up down in the dungeon, with another wave and a murmur.

I set my hands above the potion, and began pushing, muttering a few words of faux latin every now and then to further focus in my mind what the potion was to do, and to make sure my magic was sympathetic with the ingredients.

All the while, I felt the other man's mildly curious eyes on me. "I would not have had to step in, had you been more diligent in your potioneering. Why on earth didn't you turn the fire down before leaving?"

"I would have," I shot back between short bits and pieces of my favored dead language, "had I known I would have been accosted by one of the ghosts you lot let haunt the school. I didn't want to be away for more than three, maybe four minutes."

Another quirked eyebrow was my only answer, before the man gave a light shrug. His eyes soon returned to where I was pushing magic into my potion.

"What... exactly…. are you doing to that potion?" He sounded unsure of himself, and very much like he didn't want to admit it. If I remembered right, he was the Potions teacher…

Shouldn't he know this stuff, if he's the potions teacher? Or, well, any sort of Wizard?

I gave him a look like he was crazy. "I'm giving it its charge. Otherwise, I'll just be drinking a load of gross bits and pieces tossed in some rainwater. Not exactly worth the time it takes to brew."

"Don't your ingredients hold their own magic?" He asked, eyes locked a little tighter on mine. I got the sense that he was starting to get intrigued with the conversation.

"Yours do?" I asked, baffled. "What kinds of ingredients are you using?"

"What's standard, for the most part. You can find yourself with some fairly interesting effects, using basic ingredients and some creativity," he drawled. "Especially when all of the good ingredients out there are either illegal or as expensive as a world-class racing broom."

"How on earth do _your_ Potions get made?" I asked, feeling my own interest being piqued.

The greasy-haired man smirked at me. "I believe you're a bit old to be in my class, Professor Dresden. Perhaps, though, if you're interested, you can take it up with the Headmaster."

I knew then that it was the start of a beautifully annoying and snide-comment-littered friendship.

* * *

 **AN: Whoohoo! I really like the idea of Harry and Snape being friends… have been ever since I thought up this Fic, and before that, read a certain crossover oneshot that I absolutely loved. Now, I have three quick things to address before I stop my nigh ceaseless rambling!**

 **The first is the issue with posting. Seeing as it's been a month and a half since I last did so, you likely have an idea of my loose posting style, but I felt the need to make it plain for any new readers, or anyone who forgot about this story in favor of the great many fantastic ones on this site. I'm still working on my original fictions and my other fanfictions, including my pure-Potter fic, (though it hardly seems like it, I know, and I'm sorry! Chapter Two should be updated within the month, and then we're one step closer to continuing actual plot!) so posting will be erratic, and likely have fairly large gaps between each one.**

 **The second is that I referenced two great Fics in this chapter. The aforementioned one, which is called That Subtle Science and Exact Art by Jedi Buttercup deals with the budding bromance of Dresden and Snape, after Snape's still-living self starts rooming with Harry, after making the trip through the veil. May the Broom Be With You, by AletheiaFelinea is a comedy piece, dealing with Dresden using more 'traditional' methods of travel. Both are fantastically written, and if you guys are reading this now, you're awesome!**

 **The third is the issue of Beta/Brit-Picking. (As I'm very much American) Anyone who is interested is welcome to PM me about it. I think I've been pretty good about the basics so far, but I wouldn't mind having someone to bounce ideas off of. I repeat, if you're interested, PM me, do not review! Well, yes review, but don't review about wanting the job! I'm only willing to take one person, and it is NOT first come first serve. I will decide based on who applies either on one person who strikes me as best for the job/this story, or on none of anyone who was interested, in favor of continuing on myself. This won't be a reflection of ability only. If nobody matches the feel I want for this story, I'll be a greedy little troll and keep all the choices to myself. WARNING: I am a defensive writer, when it comes to small decisions. I will likely start inane arguments about little comments, like a dingus.**

 **Anyways, it's 1:30 in the AM, and I have classes tomorrow. Hope you guys enjoy! Please review, if you've got the time, and let me know what you think!**

 **Good Luck, and Happy FanFic-ing!**

 **Monkey Typewriter**


	3. Chapter 3

The students filled the classroom. And shortly after, so did the hushed whispers.

"I hear that the guy burns down buildings wherever he goes, and the muggles can't do anything about it!"

"My dad told me he's absolutely starkers…"

"Yeah? That sounds about right. I heard that he killed an entire species of vampires… because they kidnapped some kid."

The anticipatory grin on my face soured. I'd expected a bit more of an air of intrigue and mystery around the American Wizard, the one that was decidedly not of their secret magical culture. Hell, I'd been hoping for it. I'd built a picture in my mind of myself, storming through the door to my office, stern expression on my face, duster flaring out behind me as I briskly entered and assessed the class.

Now…

I shouldered the door open, staff clacking away at the stone floor. I fixed the entire class with my gaze. "Very interesting, class. You know what I've heard?"

All around, faces froze in the mild sort of horror that comes with being found out by the subject of your gossip. One dumbstruck kid near the back shook his head, mouthing "No."

"I heard that he has an excellent. Sense. Of hearing." After another quick glare around the room, they all looked suitably cowed. "Now that we've settled, it looks like we can begin." Turning around, I reached for the chalk, and quickly wrote out PROFESSOR HARRY DRESDEN on the board. Turning back to the class, I assumed a slightly less stern tone. "You may call me Professor Dresden, Professor Harry, or just plain Professor, in class. Outside of class, I don't care if you call me Professor Snuffleupagus, as long as you don't bother me while I'm working, eating, or sleeping, outside of pressing matters and emergencies. Now, does anyone have any idea as to what I will be teaching you?"

One student in the very front row shot their hand up, looking for all the world like their life depended on getting called on.

"Sure," I gestured for the bushy-haired girl to go ahead. No one else had raised their hands.

"Well," she began in a clear voice, "Outside of simple Defense techniques, like the Shield Charm, or counter-hexes and jinxes, it's likely that you'll be teaching us more specialized things that we can use to defend ourselves against more common Beasts and Beings, like the Boggart Banishing Spell." I saw her taking in a breath, this one far deeper than the last, and I only rushed a little to cut her off before I found her lecturing the class instead of me.

With a quick smile, I eyed the class. "That was a fantastic answer, Ms…?"

She smiled, almost victoriously. "Granger. Hermione Granger, Professor Dresden."

"Yes," I continued, my voice a little louder than usual. "A fantastic answer. That's why it hurts to say that you're dead wrong Ms. Granger." Her smile shattered, leaving an embarrassed red on her face as a few of the less charitable students began to laugh. One platinum blonde haired boy, who was a little louder than the rest, and seemed to egg his classmates on some, I singled out. "You," I said with the swift jab of a finger. "Five points from whatever House you're in." His laughing smirk fell. "As I was saying, it was a fantastic answer. However, as I understand it, your last teacher did a fair job of catching you up for the two years of instruction you missed. So, I'm going to follow that up with some of the most important things you can know about the world, and magic in general."

I began writing on the board once more. NAMES.

"Does anyone know the magical significance of Names?"

Granger the Quick struck again, hand first in the air. Her eyes were fierce, and she seemed to either want to get this question right to prove that she was still smart, or to melt a hole in the front of my head with her eyes. I genuinely could not decide which.

She didn't wait for me to call on her. "Names are only useful in the general sense, such as in helping you know what you're dealing with," she said almost dismissively.

"They are that," I allowed, "But they're not only that. They are far more important than you make them out to be. A Name is a connection. A trained practitioner can use that connection to hurt, kill, or bind whatever he has the Name of. Thankfully for humans, Names are fairly malleable, and change with us, so if someone has your name at one point, they may not at another, unless they know you well, or continue getting an updated idea of what your Name is."

"Then why do we introduce ourselves?" she asked, sounding disbelieving. Her hand went up almost as an afterthought.

"Raise your hand please, Ms. Granger," I admonished lightly. "And thankfully, that sort of connection can only be manifested by a Wizard who knows every pause, syllable, and breath of your name. So when middle names are left out of the picture, it keeps us safe. But always be wary of giving out your full Name. It's something you'd be safest never to trust anybody with. If you ever do decide that someone is trustworthy enough to hear it, be certain that you're alone before you tell them. Regardless, we should move on. I'll be happy to take additional questions after class."

Under NAMES, I wrote CIRCLES.

"Circles can save your life," I warned them. "They can keep anything inhuman, or, at least, anything without free will, in or out, depending on the side they're on when the circle goes up." I pulled out a piece of chalk, and inscribed a 3-foot diameter circle on the ground. "Do I have a volunteer?"

Hermione's hand shot up, her eyes narrowing slightly in skepticism. I sighed, and beckoned her up. "Now," I continued, smile widening. "Is there anyone who wants to shoot at her?"

At her start, the class jumped. I saw a few kids near the back, the ones with the green trim on their robes, trying to decide who should go up, and who should get the prime view. Finally, I settled on the boy from whom I had taken points earlier. I got the feeling that there was some sort of beef between the two of them… especially with how the boys Ms. Granger had been sitting with glared at him and his apparent cronies. And I figured it was best that they both knew there was an easy way to block spells, with some preparation.

"You in the back, What's your Name?" He looked like the sort to try and impress people with his family name… and those sorts of people liked to make an impression with their full Names, whenever they could.

"I'm Draco Malfoy." I smiled. Sure, he seemed like a snobbish rich kid, but he was still just a kid. There was still room for him to change and grow.

"Well, it appears you've been listening, not giving me your full name. Come on up, Mr. Malfoy, and bring any foci you'd like." Giving the bushy-haired girl at my side a smug, almost sinister grin, he pulled out a black wand and stalked to the front of the class.

"Into the circle, Ms. Granger," I directed the girl, whose eyes refused to leave the smirk etched across the boy's face. Once there, she shifted nervously inside of it. "Now, Ms. Granger, I am going to power up the circle. It may feel strange, being cut off from the ambient energy in the world, but I can assure you that you are perfectly safe. Do not cross the border of the circle, and don't let any of your robes do so either." Turning to the other student, I smiled. "Please step to the side of the room, Mr. Malfoy, so that the class can see and is in little danger of being caught in the spells." He nodded, moving so he faced the girl from the right-front corner of the room.

Bending down, I brushed the circle, and with a mutter, it formed around Ms. Granger with an audible SNAP. It was a messy circle that made so much noise, just being powered up, but the point was to show them how it should work. None of these kids know much about circles, and if I wanted them to learn how to power them up, I had to show them how they'd be able to accomplish it.

Taking a few big steps back into the mass of tables where the students sat, attentively facing the front, I smiled. "Ms. Granger, please remember not to cross the circle, as that will break it." She gave a weak nod, just slightly pale-faced. "Mr. Malfoy?"

He turned to me, eagerly.

"Fire at will."

He did so, a grin that I did not like on his face.

Two… Griffmore? No, no, Gryffindor, that's it, two Gryffindor boys near the front, right beside where Ms. Granger had been sitting, in fact, stood up with anger and fear written across their features. The redheaded boy shot me a look of scorn, while his shorter friend was drawing his wand, brandishing the focus at Mr. Malfoy.

Even as, harmlessly, the dark red spellfire splashed across the circle, the invisible wall of force flashing near-white for a second.

The smile slipped from the pale boy's face, and Ms. Granger sighed in relief. I could see the anger sparking in the boy's face, though, so before he could do what I figured he would, I stepped in between them, trusting the whole 'Professor' thing to keep him from trying to shoot through or around me.

"Well," I said with false cheer, clapping my hands together, "I believe that will serve well enough as an example for what circles can do practically. If my two assistants could return to their seats?"

The Slithering boy did so immediately, a stormy look over his face, as he shot the boy who had been going for his wand, (and was just now sitting down again) a nasty look. The girl encircled, though, raised her hand from within the circle. "Um… how do I break out of here? Is there some sort of repercussion for breaking a circle, or…?" I smiled, and strode right up to her, raising a hand to swipe through the power blocking her off from the rest of the world, before thinking better of it.

"Actually, now that I think about it, we have room for another learning experience. Ms. Granger, if you would, please attempt to cast a spell- any spell, really, it doesn't matter which- from in there."

She nodded slowly, drawing her own wand and giving it a few quick jabs and waves. For just a moment, there was a small fizzle at its end, a brief sparking of blue-purple light, before… nothing.

Panicked, she quickly waved her wand through the motions again. This time, there was nothing to show any energy had been moved at all. No light, sound, or heat. Which was… odd, to say the least.

When a Wizard casts a spell, they pull in ambient energy from their environment. However, it can't be just any energy. It needs to come from life, from nature, from the emotion and will of not just the wizard, but of everything around them. Magic acts on these other energies, shaping them to a Wizard's will, because the spirit, while no more powerful than these other energies, acts on a different level, one where it can touch others, but not be directly touched. Any living creature gives off traces of their spirit, and with a world as big and wide as ours, it's easy for a Wizard to pull in and shape energies to supplement their own stores in spellcasting. Even outside of that, power generated by the Earth itself also has huge amounts of Magic in them, as they are part of the planet's living and breathing. That's where stories of wizards calling and harnessing lightning, or pulling power from a volcano to sling at others comes from. It's harder, because it isn't purely magical energy, but it's all the more potent because of that.

Wizards themselves have a deep well of magic. It's actually rather potent. A sufficiently powerful wizard, unleashing everything that they have at once, even without outside forces? That kind of power can do incredible things. For one, it can pierce a circle made by even one of the minor Queens of the Faerie Courts, and still present a threat to said Queen once it broke through... presumably, at least, based on how Aurora reacted to the threat of my own Death Curse. There, of course, is the issue… If a wizard released all of their life energy at once, they'd have nothing left with which to live. Opening those flood gates too wide was an easy way to die.

Every spell, every working, curse, or otherwise directing of energies that falls under the umbrella of the Art, takes a little bit of your Will, and that life energy, to function. Every time I cast a spell, I open those gates just a little, and allow a trickle to flow, and once that trickle is in motion, the comparative torrent of outer energy that I'm guiding follows it. The more outside energy I'm commanding, the more of my own energy I need to commit to blazing a trail for it. Because of this, items like a staff and a blasting rod are helpful, as they already have a trail within them blazed pretty fully for magic to follow, especially so for items more like a blasting rod, which is used for a single purpose. So I get more bang for my buck when I cast magic that the focus is designed to help with.

But with this Hermione girl, it seemed… inherently different. There should have been some expression coming from her focus, even as unspecialized as the wand was, being an all-purpose tool for spell-slinging, in their culture. Some of her own energy should have been leaking through to try and cast the spell…

But none was.

Dropping out of my introspection, I realized just how terrified the girl was. She looked like she'd just found out a limb had been amputated while she was in a coma, unshed tears threatening to fall, wand-hand shaking, and a lost, shuddering look to her whole body. I cursed, thinking of how I'd feel if I was apparently incapable of magic so suddenly, and waved my hand through the circle, feeling it snap, as if my hand had caught on and tugged against a weak curtain, pulling it from a wall.

"Please try again, Ms. Granger," I said quietly. She needed assurance that her magic would still answer her. Fearing, or worse, expecting, that you won't be able to do magic is the surest way to kill a spell before it's begun. Quietly, she waved her wand again, muttering an incantation, and a small bird shuddered into existence, cocking its head and tweeting before flying up to the girl and settling on her shoulders.

"Return to your seat, please, Ms. Granger."

She nodded distractedly, a few last tears still dribbling down her face, as her shaking slowly abated, her breathing began to settle. She sat back down with her two friends, who both glared daggers at me.

"As you can now see," I said gravely, "being trapped in a circle is still dangerous for wizards, even if they are rather easy to break. If you can cross the border, you should be safe. If not, you will be almost incapable of working any magic whatsoever. The larger the circle, the more energy is trapped in there with you, but you will eventually run out of that power. If you're planning on controlling and directing large amounts of energy, a great way to do so is to gather the necessary energies, trap yourself and them in a circle, and release them before directing them and breaking the circle. Another way, and the one that I personally favor, is to use the circle first, laying the pathway for the energy, and then breaking the circle and allowing the energy to flow through the path you've created as you gather it, leaving you only to gather the energies and nudge them along. Now-"

A hand was raised, more nervously than Hermione's. A boy in the red and gold trim of Gryffindor, slightly chubby and looking like he wanted anything but to be noticed, was asking a question. That alone was a bit intriguing.

"Yes, Mr…?"

"Longbottom, sir, Neville Longbottom," He said quickly. "I was just wondering… what sorts of spells take long enough that it's… worth making a circle for?"

"A good question, Mr. Longbottom. Any Evocation you attempt to do will be far too quick, or at least should be too quick, to make a circle feasible. But any Thaumaturgy, or any advanced or experimental spells you're working on learning, should use a circle. The first because it makes it easier to control the finer parts of energy in them, and the latter two because any outside influences could destabilize the energies you're working with, and cause… well, a very big explosion is one possibility, assuming you're working with more volatile magic."

I heard a rather large gulp from Neville, even as Hermione began raising a shaky hand, as her two friends tried to comfort her. I think I even heard the redhead tell her that it wasn't worth it.

"Professor?" Her voice was almost normal. There was just a hint of hidden fear and terror, buried in logic and forced focus, as she tried to ignore it, and I immediately felt like the scum of the earth. I should have warned her, or displayed the circle myself, or… something.

I nodded to her, and patiently waited the few seconds it took to collect herself, and her thoughts.

"Why… why is it, exactly, that we can't cast magic inside of a circle? I thought that the magic we used came from inside of us."

"Interesting question, Ms. Granger," I said as kindly as I could. "One that will require that I do a bit more research to sufficiently answer." By which, of course, I meant that I would ask Bob. "Rest assured, though, I will tell you once I've got a good idea." Turning back to the larger class, I clapped my hands together. "Now then! We will begin practicing with the creation of magical circles. I have chalk up here, and some bits of wood. Take one each, put a circle around the wood, and try to light it on fire! Make the circle as round as possible, be sure it completely surrounds the wood, and for the love of all that is holy, don't forget to activate the circle."

* * *

Before too long, classes fell into place. I was mostly teaching the children how to be paranoid, how to stop magic someone else threw at them, how to toss some back, and how to know when to run.

Many of the Gryffindors, as I eventually learned that they were called, (at the annoyed hands of an angry Scottish wizard... or Witch, I supposed, as she insisted she be called,) especially those Third Year and up, had a lot of trouble with that last one. But these kids couldn't take full-blown wizards in a fight, and they certainly couldn't take a scourge of Black Court Vampires, or a White Court Vampire trying to charm the pants off of them, and subsequently, charm the life-force out of them. They needed to learn their limits.

Most of the other staff members were… Well, more than a bit troublesome. Professors McGonagall, Sprout, and Babbling thought that I was unnecessarily frightening the children, and as such, believed me to be a poor excuse for a teacher. I maintained that it was far better they be terrified and safe now than terrified and dead later.

Of course, they'd still likely be terrified later, but the main problem would be averted.

Professor Snape lead the charge in my defense... though it was much less a charge, and more a carefully waged campaign of Guerilla Warfare in the form of snide comments that came out of nowhere. I think that even he surprised himself in coming to my aid, though he did seem right at home bickering with the other professors. Professors Vector and Flitwick, too, thought my teaching styles to be fine, though the part-goblin (and wasn't it downright freaky how happy someone of that kind of descent was?) had his reservations about just how detailed I got in describing monsters and trying to shake the cock-sure confidence that most Gryffindors seemed to unconsciously hold that they should always get involved as their first course of action. I found out that the three of them were former Slytherins and Ravenclaws, (evidently not spelled as Slitherins, as I soon learned at the edge of my new friend's rather sharp tongue,) as opposed to the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor backgrounds of my detractors.

Professor Trelawney was too busy predicting doom and misfortune at every possible turn to really do much beyond read my palm and proclaim to me that I'd be dead by my thirty-eighth birthday.

I mean, she wasn't wrong. Depending on how technical you wanted to get, she was right twice, now that I was nearing my fortieth. Didn't mean she wasn't still a quack.

That 'Moody' character was even more offputting than constantly being threatened in such a despairing, 'you poor dear' sort of way by a woman who seemed more willing to see what she wanted to than what really was. He seemed to be keeping a special eye on me, quite literally, when it came to his special eye. It was hard to get a read on the somewhat elderly, peg-legged man, except that to my wizard's senses, he set off alarm bells, in that the magic around him was far from squeaky clean. To be fair, the same could be said of Snape, but it felt far more subdued, within him. Muted, locked away, even. It wasn't hard to see in Snape someone who similarly struggled with the burden of bad choices and worse outcomes trying to drag them down. And sure, maybe he could be a prick about it, but after it all, he wasn't evil.

Not like Moody though. The dark, greasy feel of Dark Magic clung about him actively, though from my few inquiries, I'd gathered that he was much like this 'Ministry's' version of a Warden. It was possible that he decided treading on the very edge of the law to put away or put down those outright breaking it was acceptable, as I'd done once or twice in the past.

That rationalization didn't comfort me much, and it certainly didn't keep me from watching the man.

Finally, the Groundskeeper and Magical Creatures professor seemed jovial enough, though became a bit guarded, maybe when he saw that I was growing somewhat friendly with Snape, maybe on the orders of the 'great man' who more or less stayed up in his headmaster's tower, and deigned only to come down and see us mortals at dinner. It was just as well that the part-giant man was friendly regardless. He was built like a troll, without the mean and ugly in him, but from what I could tell, he was also a good deal smarter and more loyal than the traditionally wildfae. Smart (or, at the very least, not stupid) and loyal to the point of near fanaticism could be far more dangerous, sometimes.

* * *

I didn't much care for teaching the kids spells, or even the theory, of how I slung my own magic about anymore.

It was strange, without context. Anyone who knew me well could tell you that I was an absolute geek for magic. It was such a big part of who I was. I loved it. Experimenting, testing, puzzling out a spell for a given situation, the subtle or brash manipulation of the forces of the world, the energy of life... it was incredible.

I was the equivalent of a computer nerd, when it came to magic. I loved talking about my craft to anyone who'd indulge me... the problem was, few enough people believed me, let alone indulged me in that, and just about all of my friends had long since learned that if I started talking about magic, they'd be hard-pressed to either stop me, or stay awake through the whole thing.

Much like a computer nerd explaining his own craft, the finer points of magic were lost on the plebeians I called friends.

But I had found, much to my dismay, that our styles of magic were wildly disparate, almost impossible to unify, really. After close examination of how our different sorts of Magic worked through the subtle use of Bob sitting under my best veil a few feet to my side, away from both students and where they'd be casting, my wizard's senses. The Sight was still a terrifying prospect, when I thought of the energy that sang through the air even outside, as far from the castle as I saw fit to occasionally schedule classes on the green in front of it.

That, though, was only for when I feared being contained in a small space with over fifteen kids at a time, and any explosions they managed to conjure up. As it turned out, though, to my delight and disappointment, their version of magic resulted in far fewer accidental 'Booms.' Their magic still focused largely on intent; if they didn't know what their spell was supposed to do, or didn't believe that it would work, it would fizzle out into nothing but colored sparks, or some mild mishap. This was because their magic had far less wild, self-conflicted energy coursing through it.

* * *

"What do you mean, Bob?" I asked, bewildered.

"Exactly what it sounds like," he said firmly, "their magic isn't mortal."

"So what? Are you telling me that every one of these kids is a changeling?"

"No, no," Bob muttered. "They are perfectly mortal. They tell lies, they don't drink blood, and they only have sex with you if you go for it, Harry- no need for the claw hammer!" He grumped at me, interrupting my reaching towards one of my most idle, but common threats of smashing Bob's sanctum, his defense from the scouring rays of sunlight sweeping away the loose collection of power, intelligence, and a sex drive that was Bob.

"It would be so easy, so easy to offer grades for services," he said under his breath. "'Oh, Professor Dresden, isn't there anything I can do to get my grades up?" He said in an obnoxious falsetto.

"Bob," I said, voice straining with the effort of containing irritation, "the magic. From what I saw, no power left their bodies... does that mean they're performing rituals every time they 'cast a spell?'" There were problems with such a theory, of course, but it was one of the few options that made any sort of sense.

"Not a chance, Harry. Even if there was some sort of forgotten god or something with the power to supply all of these wizards with their 'magic,' and in exchange for such short rituals and no sacrifices, I've never heard of a god humble or giving enough to do that at the constant beck and call of thousands of mortals. There's a couple of reasons most rituals have specific time requirements, Harry. While gods like exchanging a bit of power that will come back in no time at all for some recognition and a free meal or something, they never want the mortals to think that they're the ones in charge. As soon as that happens, the sacrifices stop, and the rituals come whenever, and so often that the god needs to do some serious smiting to get back to the sweet set-up he had before."

It made sense. From what I'd learned, most gods and powers of that caliber hoarded most of their energy zealously, spending it only when they could gain without any real threat of loss... or when it ensured that they got the message of 'don't screw with me' across. If the steady, consistent returns on their investments stopped, they'd either stop giving their power to the rituals, or more likely, descend from Olympus, or Asgard, or wherever, and crack some mortal heads until the status quo was restored.

"As for the numbers..." Bob continued, in full lecture mode, "When too many people call on a god at once to perform a ritual, that gets a bit scary for them. No matter how comparatively small the energy is for a god, something like twenty rituals at once wouldn't tax a god too much, but it would leave them just vulnerable enough for another god to think they're an attractive target to take some territory or prestige from, which just cascades and grows into a big, annoying mess, regardless of whether or not the god doing the rituals manages to lose nothing from the fights that may be drawn."

"So rituals aren't possible... or are at least very unlikely," I allowed, thinking of some darker things that one might give a god that would be instant power in their pocket, like bits one's life force, like giving away what the White Court took, essentially trading away your vitality, a few hours, days, or even years at a time... for what? For the ability to cast spells in the first place? If that were the case, why on Earth would only these people have access to magic? Why wouldn't any mortal be able to make some sort of pact and get such power?

I rubbed at my brow. It didn't make sense. These kids only had to learn the proper words, and how to move a glorified stick through the air- they didn't even make their own foci! They-

My head shot out of the hand rubbing at it, and I shot out of the chair supporting me. "Bob, they don't make their own foci."

"So? That means they're stupid, not that there's some reason they can work magic differently."

"No, no," I muttered, beginning to pace in front of the table on which Bob sat. "Making foci is more than just building a tool for them. It's an art. It's- I'm not explaining this right." I shook my head, running a hand through my hair. "They have specific people. Wandmakers. I've heard of one fairly nearby, this 'Ollivander.' His family has been making wands for generations. It's- it's a science. An art. Not something that just anybody can do. And I haven't seen a single person outside of that guy Dumbledore do any magic without one. Maybe the wands are crucial to how their magic works?"

I turned to Bob, eager for his input. This was the type of thing I loved. A magical question that was interesting, one with no deadline to it, no pressure to figure it out but the pressure I put on myself, and no lives riding on me doing the right thing. And Bob was an excellent person to bounce theories off of.

"Hm," he hummed for a moment. "It's a start. Maybe you should get yourself a wand, and we can run a few tests?"

"Maybe," I grinned. And I loved being able to say this next part, for once. "I've got some gold burning a hole in my pocket."

* * *

Of course, shortly after I said that, I remembered that I had a set of papers I had to grade from Years One through Four on the theory behind Circles, and why blood is often involved in their activation. And after that came the paper on the different sorts of vampires for the Fifth Years, including the now extinct Red Court. Red Court vampires were a great example of the general sort of monster one might encounter. Fast, strong, predatory, and when they control themselves, intelligent. I especially wanted to frighten the older kids into being careful around the supernatural. Thankfully, I had given the older kids a pass on written work this week, instead letting them study and practice for their exam- stopping my little 'ball of sun spell.' I didn't expect any of them to do it, but they didn't know that. I wanted to push these kids, mostly so they'd know their own strengths, and that there were vastly more powerful wizards out there... but, a guilty little part of me also wanted to understand their magic.

The only textbook I had assigned was 'Elementary Magic,' by Ebenezar McCoy. To my knowledge, my grandfather was the only wizard who had managed to put out a decent book on the basics of controlling and channeling your magic, rather than some vague, philosophical text talking about magic as some abstract, unknowable force. It covered the basics, and hopefully would help these kids to better understand what I was talking about. I had yet to find a student capable of doing my sort of magic.

It was possible, of course, that the issue was more with their teacher than them. I had learned most of the foundations of magic from my old mentor and guardian, Justin DuMorne, and before then, I had only taught people who already knew something about magic. For Molly, she had already done some psychomancy, and regardless of that being considered one of the big grey-to-black scale magics, with no completely squeaky clean applications, it was still magic performed how I was used to it being done. From there, teaching her more about thaumaturgy, potions, and veils wasn't too difficult, as she already knew something about how the energy was channeled. At Camp Kaboom, where I taught some baby Wardens about evocation during the war with the Red Court, they were already well-taught enough to be considered full-blown wizards and Wardens, maybe due to the somewhat lax war time restrictions on the positions, but hey, what can you do?) and as such knew how to put together a working.

I'd never taught someone completely unfamiliar with magic before. And while most of these kids would bristle at me saddling them with that description, that's what they were to me; completely new to the world of magic.

To do magic, you had to put a part of you into everything you did. Human Will had to power every last working. It's what made our magic so very different from most beings. But these kids didn't. Their magic was diverse, and potent, but it didn't have anything put into it. It had no personal touches. Carlos Ramirez, Warden Commander and one of the best combat wizards I'd ever seen in action, had a sort of spell that seemed to vaporize anything he hit with it. He used it to shield himself and to destroy his enemies, bolts of green entropy magic taken to an incredible level. These kids, in contrast, all learned the same things, and were taught the same spells. As far as I could tell, while some had trouble with certain subjects, it was almost never an issue of being less competent with one type of magic, and more so with another. It was more a matter of interest in dedication: they favored a subject, and then excelled in it.

Had I tried to teach Molly the same way that I had been taught, I would have failed. She simply didn't have the raw power to work magic the same way that I was taught to. And while power is certainly not a problem for her now, she was still more adept at more delicate workings.

There was no personality to any of their magic, and it troubled me some.

* * *

Finally having completed working on the papers, I grabbed some of the 'Floo Powder' that the Headmaster allotted me, and made my way to 'Diagon Alley.'

Diagon Alley wasn't exactly what I had been expecting.

You see, back home in Chicago, there were maybe five or six places in the entire city that catered to supernatural needs. Of those, there were three that actually peddled items or services of worth in the more spooky circles; Bock Ordered Books being one, Mortimer Lindquist the Ectomancer being the second, and little old me coming up as number three. Out of the three of us, only one of us sold physical things, as I refused to take the time to make foci for other people when so much of my time was already eaten up by renewing, creating, and replacing my own, while Mort's skill set prevented him from even considering such a thing as possible. So when I heard about the one-stop shopping center for potion ingredients, magical tomes, pre-made foci, and more family-focused things like ice-cream and pets, I imagined maybe three small shops huddled together that struggled to provide for so large and isolated a wizarding community.

Considering that, I was not expecting to be greeted by an eclectic and eccentric string of shops on a long street, branching into smaller 'alleys,' if the town-square-esque center could be called such a thing to begin with, as things became more and more specialized. Some shops towered above others, some leaned out over the streets, so much so that I was amazed at how everyone ignored the potential looming death above them.

I'd come somewhat forewarned as well. Professor Snape had given me a few pieces of advice on where to acquire the freshest and least contaminated potion ingredients, and I had those filed away for later, being a certain shop in the line of shops on 'Knockturn Alley.' He also warned me to keep a firm eye on all of my possessions in that area of this… city? Town? Magic mall?

Regardless, my focus was Ollivanders, closely followed by looking for a basic magical theory book, if I could find one, in 'Flourish and Blotts.'

First, though, I would need to go to Gringotts.

Being the only British bank in the wizarding world, it was naturally where Dumbledore had placed my paycheck for the first couple of weeks. I'd need some of that wizarding currency to pay for what I was looking for.

Strolling up to the bank was an interesting affair. First off, I got plenty of strange looks from wizards that were eyeing up my outfit. Each and every man, woman and child on the Alley wore robes of wildly varying colors, and seemed to think that jeans, a simple Star Wars shirt, and a leather duster was an odd fashion choice.

Like I was the weird one.

The second major issue was when I saw the two beings flanking the door to enter the massive marble bank.

They were goblins.

My last meeting with goblins had been a thoroughly terrifying experience… It was nearly a death sentence for me and… for me.

Servants of the Erlking, the goblins are, much like him, a force of nature. When they wanted something dead they were silent and quick. What they were killing hardly ever knew what was happening until they were already dead. They oftentimes rode with the Erlking when he called the Wildhunt, as they were, simply put, hunters without equal.

These goblins were unmistakably related. Although, it was easy to see that they were also… different. Where the goblins that lived in the Nevernever with the Erlking ranged in size and shape so thoroughly that the only uniting feature between them all was their asymmetry, there was another common thread between these goblins in their small stature.

Still. I had a feeling that the blades at their hips were as sharp as they came, and that their skill with them was completely unrivaled among common men and women. In fact, after seeing how quick goblins were to draw blades and kill even prey such as vampires with ease, their proximity to a distracted, seemingly ignorant and dismissive populace had me worried. Magic or no, if a goblin was close enough to pull a blade and put it to their throat with no warning, the wizards would be dead before they even levelled a death curse, and even two goblins, in the middle of a crowd, could cause untold amounts of death and destruction, especially when considering a crossfire beginning with wizards not hardened by battle trying to throw spells and hitting their fellow victims.

It was terrifying, and the people around me hardly seemed to notice.

I warily approached the doors, halting before the goblins, giving the goblins a berth of five feet. I shook out my shield bracelet as I approached, and held my will prepared to put a shield between me and razor sharp death.

"Hello," I unceremoniously began, after the two goblins looked at me with a strange mix of curiosity and scorn, and the man that had been walking behind me began muttering about 'inconsiderate, unfashionable Yanks.' How he identified me as American, I'll never know.

The two goblins looked at each other, muttering something too low for me to understand, though I got the feeling that they weren't speaking english.

The one on the right turned back to me, and in a voice deeper and more guttural than I expected from the thin goblin that only came up to my mid-stomach, wearing armor that somehow straddled the line between being ceremonial and battle-scarred, spat "What do you want, wizard?"

My eyebrows raised just a bit at the level of venom his voice held, but I kept on, undeterred. "I was told that those who work here also live here. Is this bank your home?"

"Enter or leave wizard," the one on the left growled. "We don't have time for tourists."

"Really?" I asked, an amused quirk to my lips.  
"Really!"

"Sorry about that. It looked to me like you were just standing around. If you're really that busy, I can wait for when you go off high alert, and sit down."

At that it became clear that Lefty's hand was wringing at his sword's grip, while Righty was clenching his teeth. Bad habits can be so hard to break, but these days I was beginning to believe that my habit of being a smart alek to things that want me dead is more nature than habit.

"What. Do you want?" Righty gritted out.

"I wanted to ask for permission to cross your threshold."

By that point, the people that had stood behind me began to filter around, though I was sure to keep a firm eye on both the goblins, even as some wizards did their best to obscure my vision with their robes. Sometimes being built like a professional basketball player had its perks. But as a result of that, I noticed Righty draw in a small breath of surprise, and Lefty's eyes widen.

"So?" I prodded, filing away that bit of information for later. "May I?"

Lefty was, by that time, trying desperately to avoid my gaze, while Righty tried to meet it. I was certain to look at his nose instead. The goblins that I knew were fae, and as such didn't have souls to initiate a soulgaze. These goblins were undoubtedly different. I'd heard brief ramblings from the ghost professor, Binns, during staff meetings, about how Gringotts has never changed hands between races, and was city, bank, and fortress all at once. I'd heard from a few more alive staff members that they wished the bank was wizard owned. I had assumed they meant it was owned and operated by nonmagical people, or 'squibs' or whatever, but if they meant goblins, it meant that these goblins had lived here, in the material world, for generations, if not centuries or millenia. There was no telling what might have changed among them as a result of any sort of interference, magical or otherwise.

Righty nodded briefly. "Enter, druid, with the permission of Grimbor Grasp-Gem. Make no trouble, and you will not be cut down where you stand."

I nodded, keeping a cool exterior, while sweating internally. Being watched by goblins for the slightest toe out of line was not my idea for a good time, let alone a relaxing shopping trip to satisfy my curiosity.

I'd play it by ear though, and, with some luck, I wouldn't be gutted like a fish and have my entrails paraded around.

* * *

 **AN:**

 **Great Galloping Gazelles, Batman, look at those Dastardly Delays!**

 **I have no excuse for the massive delay on putting this chapter out. I got distracted all over the dang place by school, life, several video games, my own idiocy and tendency to procrastinate, and more.**

 **I am currently doing Camp NaNoWriMo, though, which _should_ help me to work quickly. This chapter is going up unedited. I will likely go back and heavily edit it later, but it is currently 2:50 in the morning, I'm tired, and I have a game of Dungeons and Dragons to DM tomorrow (Yup, I'm even more of a nerd than you thought, probably!) so I'm going to toss this at the wall, ignore it, and see what sticks MUCH later.**

 **However, my NaNo-ing may not mean rapid updates this month. I may actually decide to edit before posting on further chapters.**

 **Anyways, Good Luck, and Happy FanFic-ing!**

 **Monkey Typewriter**

 **AN 2: Fixed the first half or so of the chapter so that there are actual spaces between paragraphs. That was driving me crazy. Real edits will take a while, as I'm NaNo-ing more of this story for the month.**


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing I noticed wasn't the comparative splendor within the bank, which looked like it belonged in Athens, or maybe Rome, at the peaks of their respective powers. It wasn't the ten goblins in full view guarding, or the thought that if there were ten that I could see, there were likely another ten I couldn't, at the very least. It wasn't even how casually all the other wizards were about walking into what, if I have not been lead astray, amounted to its own sovereign nation.

No, the first thing that I noticed was the threshold around the place.

It didn't physically stop me. I had permission, so it parted for me. But while some thresholds amounted to a heavy curtain, or a heavy weight settling on my shoulders as I passed through it, this one was certainly closer to the former in how it felt to wade through it. However, it felt as if my magic was being strained as I walked through the threshold, examined closely, before being gestured to move on by an uncaring TSA agent, and I actually had to exert myself to get through the thing.

I got the feeling that, had my magic, or more accurately, whatever imprint was on me based on what I had done with magic, not passed whatever test there was, I would not have enjoyed my first time in this bank very much. A bigger part of me doubted that I would have even been able to enter without permission… not without losing more or less all of my power upon entering, only for it to be returned to me upon exiting.

Glancing around at the blasé wizards moving in and out with no problems, as if they owned the place, and without any conversation between them and the goblins at the door, I wondered how these wizards all moved into Gringotts either without needing to deal with the threshold, or simply ignoring its effects.

I tried to shake it off. I was there for a reason, after all.

The place was big, though it didn't exactly take all of my deductive capabilities to figure that out. Maybe it was a trick of the architecture, but it looked slightly bigger on the inside than the outside. Grand white columns reached up towards the ceiling in two large, neat rows, each one as thick around as a redwood. There were about twenty teller windows, from what I could guesstimate without actually counting, and the goblins manning them moved through the worrying lines with quick, brusque efficiency. There was no doubt that this was a place of business.

That made the idea of their threshold being as strong as it was very interesting. From what I could understand, goblins weren't much for magic, so it was unlikely that what I had felt walking through were wards. Maybe the influences of a home being nonhuman in nature on a threshold?

That too was something to consider. These goblins were at least connected to the goblins of the Nevernever. But they couldn't be fully fae, otherwise they would have no free will, and build no threshold. The explanation for my work to get through the threshold could be the thing mirroring the mindset of the race that built it, always wary of outsiders, and ready for an enemy to come to their gates.

It-

I shook my head. All of this magical speculation was starting to wear on even my patience for the technical aspects of magic. Rules seemed to be subverted and changed without thought, by the inhabitants of this 'wizarding world,' without rhyme or reason.

I promised myself I would save most of the rest of my thoughts on the magic here for when I had Bob as a sounding board. It just wasn't worth the headache, doing it by myself, and doing nothing but considering the impossibilities of certain things here.

Without too much preamble, I strode over to one of the quickly moving lines, and pulled out the slip of paper that Dumbledore had handed me, rather than a paycheck. You know, like perhaps an intelligent monetary system would go.

Handing it to the goblin, I waited for his eyes to flick over the paper. With a full-bodied sigh, he shook his head, and made a 'follow me' motion. He got down off of his chair, and behind the counter, moved off to the side, where he went through a goblin-sized door on his side that looked to be heavily reinforced, and opened a far larger, yet less intimidating door on the customer side of things just across the teller's counter. Impatiently, he waved me through the door, before we both sat around a desk.

"It looks like you hated that letter almost as much as I do," I grunted to the goblin as I sat, fingers tight on my staff, and prepared to gather my will at the slightest twitch. All faeries were inhumanly fast, and from what I'd seen of goblins of the fully-fae variety, they were a step above even some of the Sidhe in terms of skill and dexterity with a weapon. Sitting down in front of a goblin, even one I had begun to theorize as 'watered down,' did not strike me as a good idea. However, seeing as this place had a threshold, it really was their home. Which meant I was there under Guest Rights.

Which meant, if I didn't want to create a potential international incident, I would play nice.

Thankfully, it meant he'd do much the same.

He waved the piece of paper around, a scowl under his long, misshapen nose. "This," he spat, "tells me nothing except your name, and that you are to be paid out of his vault. It says nothing of how much. It says nothing of whether or not the funds are to be transferred or removed. All that I know," he scowls a little harder, "is that you have potential access to every ounce of gold in Albus Dumbledore's vault, if you want it."

I scowled back at that. _What is this, old man? Some kind of test? Some way to gauge how trustworthy I am?_ A large, vicious part of me wanted to do just what the goblin said that I could, and raid his vault for every last penny. But, contrary to popular belief in the supernatural community, I have a set of morals that includes not stealing, outside of extreme cases. And while I held an extreme dislike for the man, this hardly qualified as such.

Dredging up the memory of the paper that grey owl had dropped off more than a month before, and shortly later the paper itself, from deep within the bowels of my duster pocket, I told the goblin that I was being paid something like two hundred and sixty galleons a week, and that it had been about six weeks since I had started. The goblin nodded, though I got the sense that he was judging me for not cleaning out the man's vault.

Setting up a vault wasn't all that much work, and seeing as I had a bit of shopping to do, I asked to have the gold deposited directly to my new vault, (Vault 1136,) and that fifty galleons be taken out immediately. After setting up and 'renting' the vault's use, essentially spending half of a week's salary on setting the vault aside to hold the other five and a half weeks' worth pay, and setting up the weekly transfer of pay supposedly without Dumbledore's knowledge, I withdrew fifty and got out of the self-identified Griphook's proverbial hair. As I left, the goblins at the door tightened their grips on their weapons, but said nothing, save for a muttered, deferential, if angry about it, "Druid."

'Druid.' I shook my head. The goblins worked with wizards on a daily basis. I was sure they knew that calling a Wizard anything but just that was something of an insult. As the Chlorofiend proved all those years ago, I had little clout with nature spirits, and the binding of them to my will would be no easier than it was for any other practitioner.

* * *

Finally free to do as I would, I enjoyed shopping for potion supplies, with a helpful list of commonly used and especially potent potion ingredients off of a particularly shady-looking street called 'Knockturn Alley,' and a shop very suspiciously called 'Potent Potions, Powerful Poisons, and Pickled Pixies.'

I was more than a little relieved to find that the pickled pixies looked nothing like the Wee Folk, and more like their Red Court equivalent. Though, unsettlingly enough, 'Fairy Wings' were on Snape's list. I bought them, but I was somewhat concerned over the ethics of the situation.

Heavily laden with potion ingredients, I left Knockturn Alley, glaring at a man in ragged clothes who seemed to be fingering his wand as he looked at me. At my look, he scurried off, and I sighed as I walked away. Apparently, even a fully-magical society can't keep from having people badly enough off to make crime seem appealing.

In spite of the dour turn to my thoughts though, I was excited.

I was going to get a wand, and then Bob and I would be able to properly geek out while studying the new piece to the magical puzzle that was this whole magical world.

The owl-eyed man behind the counter took one look at me, at the staff in my hand, and began shaking his head. Slowly moving away from the boxes that he had been shelving just behind the counter, he left the organized chaos that seemed to run through every nook and cranny of the shop. Small boxes, each perhaps a foot and a half long, and no more than four inches tall or wide, were stacked across the counter, jammed into shelves wherever they could find room, some pristine and shined to the point of the wood gleaming, others clearly older and comparatively untouched for long periods of time, judging by the dust, and yet others with boxes held together by nothing but the smallest splinters and prayers.

The place had a bit of a hectic feel to it. It reminded me, with a pang of nostalgia, of my basement lab, back when I had my own apartment. Potions ingredients scattered across the room in a controlled chaos, books inherited from my mentor and grandfather, Ebenezar McCoy, as well as those I had managed to acquire over years of surviving being myself, as well as copies of a few that the White Council allowed all of its members access to. Little Chicago parked in the center of the little sub-basement, with Bob looking down from on high, surrounded by candles burned down to the nub, and well-worn, well-read and re-read romance novels.

It had been cool in the summers, downright freezing in the winters, and my only place of refuge when a magical emergency rained down from above, surged up from below, or blew in from the next town over. It was where I went to focus, when casting particularly complex spells, where I studied and experimented both for my own satisfaction, for the joy of crafting new spells, and to find a way to keep my head on my shoulders, and where I had made some of my best memories in working magic.

"Sir, I cannot say that I remember ever having served you before. Do you need help with your wand?" He kept looking at the staff in my right hand with half-hidden disdain. "I must warn you, I have no experience with staves, and as such can promise no help with… that."

Feeling somewhat self-conscious, I tightened my grip on my staff, and cleared my throat.

"No, I don't need my wand serviced," I told him, the little tenth grader in the back of my mind laughing madly at the innuendo that seemed to go over the man's head. "I was planning on purchasing a wand from you."

"Oh?" He perked up slightly at that, eyes filled with interest and delight, as he gave me an evaluating look. "What was your most recent wand like? There's no guarantee, but it is not uncommon that your next one will be rather similar."

"That would be the issue. I haven't actually had a wand will be my first."

The man's face lit up with delight. "A first-time customer? And at such an age!" He clapped his hands like a giddy child. "Come, come! We have much to do!"

With that, he disappeared into the veritable library of boxes behind him, a grin on his elderly face, and his eyes far too wide for me to be entirely sure he wasn't part owl. I stepped up to the counter just as he burst out from behind one rather precariously balanced shelf, and reverently laid a box on the table.

"Holly," he rattled off at me, eyes locked on the wand box. "Fifteen inches. A little long for most, but I think it appropriate for one of your height… It possesses a Unicorn Hair core, and is rather excitable, but excellent for both Charms and Transfiguration." He offered the wand to me, and with some excitement, I reached for it.

Which was a big mistake, looking back. It generally isn't smart to touch magical objects without understanding how they work. In my defense, I was fully under the impression that, while these wands were specially crafted by experts, and made by only the finest materials that could be found, they were normal foci, simple channels through which magic could more easily be worked. Simply put, I was totally convinced that I understood them exactly.

I was proven very wrong when I picked the stick up, and felt it… vibrate. I turned, studying it, wondering why it was vibrating, fully in 'magic nerd' mode, and not in 'don't get my head blown off' mode. I changed gears pretty quickly, though, when a bolt of force flew from the tip of the wand, striking the storefront with the force of a thunderclap, shattering the glass of every store within thirty feet of the bolt, knocking the elderly wand-maker off his feet, and slamming me back-first into the counter, groaning as I struggled to keep my feet.

I made a quick check over myself, for any major injuries, and turned to the wand-maker sprawled out on the floor behind me. The reflexive scowl that had stolen across my face faded, as I realized that whatever happened wasn't meant to. For once, the unexpected explosion did not herald an attempt on my life. I sighed as I rounded the counter, helping the frazzled old man back to his feet.

"Are you okay, sir?" I asked, very much aware of just how fragile the human body was even for those in the prime of their lives. For the elderly, even a minor spill could be dangerous, life-threatening even, under the wrong circumstances. Thankfully, he was still in good enough health to grasp my hand, and let me more or less haul him to his feet.

Contrary to what I had expected, there was a massive grin on his face. "Remarkable!" He cried, bouncing in giddy excitement, practically dancing with glee. "That was perhaps the greatest expression of accidental magic I've ever seen, and in direct response to a wand of mine!" He slowly stooped down, his sharp eyes picking out the wand among the splinters, shattered glass, and other debris on the floor, and his hand deftly scooping it up.

"So… that was supposed to happen?" I asked warily.

"Of course not!" He cried with joy, "This wand could not possibly be any less suited to you!" Slapping the wand back into its case and shelving the box, he began to search through the boxes around him for… something.

"Well, that's not entirely true, using Unicorn Hair seems to have been a close fit, even if it was the wrong Unicorn… Ah hah!" He cried, triumphantly pulling a weathered old box from another shelf. "Ash and Unicorn Hair, twelve inches, this one's rather stubborn." With a wide smile still splitting his lines face, and his massive eyes blinking at me from behind his oversized glasses, he offered the wand to me handle-first.

Warily, I took it.

* * *

About three minor explosions later, progressively reducing in scale until only I was being tossed off my feet, Ollivander put a thirteen inch wand in my hand, a thin black rod that seemed to hum with power. When it met my fingers, I felt a surging warmth, along with the familiar tingle of shaking hands with a practitioner prickling along every inch of skin in contact with the rod.

"Very interesting wands you sell," I told the him, pocketing the odd little stick and paying the man.

"Always a pleasure to pair the wand to the wizard," the man said jovially. "Difficult customers are my specialty, and you're one of the hardest to place I've seen all year!"

I left the store only slightly concerned about what might have happened in the years before I bought from him, and morbidly curious whether or not anyone had lost a few fingers in that shop.

* * *

 **AN: Oh, wow. It uh… it's been a while, huh?**

 **Yeah… I had excuses, but honestly, I've had so much time that none of them really hold any water now. Hopefully over the coming school year I can be a bit more dedicated with how I do things.**

 **To be honest I'm not satisfied with this chapter. It feels like filler, and that's not good, but at the same time, I think I've cured myself of my former 'every chapter a climax' style of writing Fanfiction, which can only be good. It just feels great to get Dresden off of Diagon Alley, and having sown a few seeds of foreshadowing, hopefully I can get back into things without eight more months, eh?**

 **NOTE TO ALL REVIEWERS: I appreciate each and every review, but I want to make it clear that I will not respond to reviews in Author's Notes, unless it can be done in one or two sentences. I am always happy to talk and discuss the story or the source material with anybody, but inside of the story is not the place to do it. If you leave a review, please do it with an account, or I will not be responding! If you post a review without an account, it doesn't mean I appreciate it less, I just would prefer for the avenue for dialogue to be open!**

 **Or, if you would rather discuss things outside of a review, feel free to PM me! I go on Fanfiction at least two or three times a week, so my replies shouldn't take too long!**

 **Good Luck, and Happy FanFic-ing!**

 **Monkey Typewriter**


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